The Ghosts of Ireland
by Rosalita Of Ireland
Summary: Life is finally quiet for Team Phantom. But the bliss doesn't last. A mysterious girl named Bridget, who claims to be on the run from the Guys in White, suddenly arrives at FentonWorks, asking Danny to help her hide. But Bridget has another secret...one that could completely shake up Danny's world. A.N. Reviews are encouraged-You review my work, I review yours
1. Chapter 1

"Aw, man!" Danny moaned, collapsing back in his chair with a small huff.

"Dude," Tucker cried out. He dropped his game controller in his lap and flopped his arms across his stomach, laughing. "That was _too_ easy! You _stink_ at this game!"

Danny, frowning, reached over to Tucker's chair and touched the arm. The chair turned intangible, and Tucker fell through it onto the floor. "Hey!" he shouted at Danny, who released the chair and started laughing.

Sam, who was sitting on Danny's bed, was laughing too. "Dude," she gasped at Tucker, trying to imitate him through her laughter, "that was _too_ easy!" She managed to lean over, holding out a hand, and Danny high-fived her. Tucker scowled up at them.

It was late on a Friday, sometime in July – it was summer vacation, so no one was bothering to keep track of what the date was. And not only was it a vacation from school, but it seemed to be a vacation from ghost-fighting as well. It had been a month since their run-in with Freak Show and the Reality Gauntlet, and more than two weeks since any ghost had given Danny and his friends any trouble. The Box Ghost had been around occasionally, but it had taken Danny only about fifteen minutes to get him back into the Fenton Thermos each time. Tucker and Sam hadn't even bothered to come with him, but just retreated to the FentonWorks Lab, waiting for Danny to get back so they could zap the Box Ghost back into the Ghost Zone.

Even Vlad Masters, a.k.a. Vlad Plasmius, hadn't come after Danny. He had gone to Singapore to conduct another business merger that would make him millions of dollars. He had left Danny a note telling him this, and warned Danny not to come after him while he was busy, leaving all kinds of ghastly threats as to what he would do to Danny if he came to Singapore and messed up his business deal. Danny had thought about going after Vlad, but decided that it wasn't worth flying to Singapore to get Vlad. So for the time being, Danny and his archenemy had called a truce.

So Danny and his friends, after their ususal late-night patrol of Amity Park, had crashed at Danny's place for the night, playing video games and generally hanging out. They finally felt free to enjoy the summer, and so they had decided to enjoy it – their way.

Danny got up from his chair and pulled Tucker to his feet. "Ready for another round of Hero?" Danny asked his best friend.

"Always!" Tucker cheered up instantly.

"Sam, you wanna jump in this time?" Danny asked.

"Nah, no thanks," Sam replied, distracted. "I'm trying to finish this new book I got from the goth bookstore."

_Tap-tap-tap_.

"What was that?" Tucker asked, nervous.

"I don't know," Danny replied, equally nervous.

"It came from your window," said Sam, rolling across Danny's bed to look out the window. "Danny, there's a _girl_ out there!"

"What?" Danny started, moving over to look out the window. "That's impossible. How did a girl get outside of my window?"

"I don't know," Sam replied, "but she looks like she's about to fall! You'd better let her in."

"I guess." Danny went to the window and undid the latch to open it.

The girl clinging to the window ledge looked about the same age as Danny and his friends. She was skinny, with freckles and a long, thin nose. She had long, dark red hair, held back in a ponytail, and was wearing blue jeans and a black t-shirt. A backpack was slung over her back. Danny pulled open the window and the girl leaned in. "Are you Danny Fenton?" she asked him tersely. She had a thick accent that Danny couldn't place.

"If I am?" Danny replied, just as coldly. His eyes glowed green, a sure sign that he was wound up to attack if provoked.

"My name is Bridget Morrigan," the girl said, and she leaned a little further into Danny's room. "Please, let me in. I need your help."

Danny looked around at Sam and Tucker. They each gave him a slight nod. Danny trusted his friends and their judgment, especially Sam's. If they thought she was safe too, then she probably wasn't a threat. Danny stood back from the window and Bridget scrambled in over the windowsill, turning a somersault and landing on the floor with a thump.

Sam went over and helped the girl to her feet. "You're Irish," she noted.

"And proud of it," Bridget growled, dusting herself off.

"Wait," said Tucker, "How could you tell she was Irish?"

"The accent," Sam replied casually, with a faint smile. She always felt a little prick of warmth whenever she showed the boys up at something. Danny felt it too. Sam was pretty brilliant. It was one of the things he liked – er, admired, about her.

Sam sat Bridget down on the bed and then joined her. Danny and Tucker turned around the chairs they had been playing video games in, so they could face the girls. "OK," Danny said, staring at Bridget with his fists clenched on his knees, "you found Danny Fenton. Now, how can he help you?"

Bridget took a deep breath, and began. "I'm on the run, from the Guys in White. I've been on the run for at least two months. I just recently started looking for you. I figured this is one of the few places I can go where I'll be safe."

"Wait, wait, wait," Tucker interrupted. "You're on the run? From the Guys in White? Why?"

Bridget bit her lip. "My parents died, when I was really little. We lived in Ireland, in Dublin. I was sent to live in an orphanage. It was an old building, with lots of passages and cupboards in it, and I liked to go exploring. Especially since I didn't have any friends, really.

"One day, I noticed that kids in the orphanage were going missing. I asked the woman in charge about it, and she told me the kids were all adopted. But I didn't believe her. When kids were adopted, they told everybody, they were so excited. They didn't disappear in the middle of the night.

"So I decided that I would go find them. I started looking in every secret passage and corner and cupboard that I could find, looking for them."

"So did you find them?" Danny said, the truth beginning to dawn on him.

Bridget folded her arms across her chest. "No. But I found where they had been taken. I never found out what happened to them, and I'm not sure I want to know.

"There was a lab. A big one, underneath the orphanage. The Guys in White were working down there, doing…experiments. But then they saw me. I knocked something over, something small. But they all heard it. I managed to get away, back upstairs to the orphanage. I thought they wouldn't find me. But the next day they came for me. I threw some clothes in a bag, and I climbed out the window. I've been running ever since."

Danny, Sam, and Tucker just sat in stunned silence for a while. In one of her rare moments of sentimentality, Sam put her arm around Bridget's shoulders.

"You can sleep in here for tonight," Danny said. "Tomorrow, we'll talk to my parents. If you're really on the run from the Guys in White, I'm sure they'll be fine with letting you hide out here for a little while."

"Thank you, Danny," Bridget said, and for the first time, she smiled. She had a nice smile, Danny noticed. Pretty.

"Hey, no prob," Danny replied, spreading his hands, "as long as you don't mind sleeping on the floor."

"Nah, not a bit," Bridget replied, waving her hand a little.

Danny slipped out of his bedroom and ran down the hall to the closet, where he got a sleeping bag and a pillow for Bridget. He came back into the room and handed them to her. She unrolled the sleeping bag, spreading it out on the other side of Danny's bed from Sam and Tucker's sleeping bags.

"Bridget," Danny suddenly asked. "How did you know to come here? What made you think you'd be safe, in Amity Park, with the Fentons?"

Bridget was trying to smooth out a stubborn crease in her sleeping bag, not looking up. "I heard about you. Amity Park's been all over the news lately, with all of the ghost attacks. I know the Fentons have a natural uneasiness about government involvement in their ghost work."

"So why'd you come to me first?" Danny asked.

Bridget fiddled with the fabric of her sleeping bag. "I…thought…you might be more willing to help one of your own. Another teen," she added quickly. "You might be able to help me make my case to your parents. Jazz too, if she can help."

Danny smiled a little bit. "Well, we can try. I don't see why they won't help."

Bridget chewed her lips. "Thanks, Danny." She sat up on her knees, and reached across Danny's bed. She picked up the book that Sam had dropped, Ghosts of the Victorian Era. "Where'd you get this?" she asked Sam.

Sam blushed a little. "Goth bookstore a couple blocks over. You know it?"

"I owned a copy back at the orphanage." Bridget began leafing through the pages. "This is a very good copy. You must take good care of it."

"I just got it," Sam replied, a little confused by Bridget's knowledge of the goth world.

Bridget handed the book back to Sam. "Don't let me…keep you all up," she muttered awkwardly, and she crawled into her sleeping bag and lay down to go to sleep.

Danny, Tucker, and Sam sat down on the floor in a circle on the other side of Danny's bed. "Do you trust her?" Danny asked Sam and Tucker.

"A little. But I think there's something she's not telling us," Sam replied.

"I agree with Sam," Tucker said, "There's no way she just knew where to go. And…I think she must know…that you're Danny Phantom. It's a better explanation than the one she just gave us."

"What?" Danny gasped, louder than her probably should have. "There's _no way_ she can know I'm Danny Phantom._ No one_ knows I'm Danny Phantom!"

"Pipe down!" Sam hissed at Danny, grabbing his shoulders so he'd really get the message. "If she doesn't already know, you don't want to give it away now!"

Danny scowled and sat back. "Fine. But then, what do you think she's not telling us?"

"I don't know," Sam said slowly. "But whatever it is, I don't think it's anything bad."

"Maybe I should take a look," Danny said. He got up on his knees and looked over the bed to the spot where Bridget had fallen asleep. "Maybe if I overshadow her while she's asleep, and dreaming, I can take a look around."

"Danny, no," Sam interjected, putting out a hand to stop Danny. "Don't. If she's really on the run from the Guys in White, she's probably not inclined to trust anyone. But she trusts us. We can't just walk into her mind and take a look around."

"But I don't want to find out later that this is all a trap," Danny pointed out.

"Danny," Sam asked, grabbing Danny's shoulder and turning him around, "who's the better judge of character?"

"You are," Danny and Tucker muttered dejectedly.

Sam smiled. "Let her sleep. If you still don't trust her in the morning, you can overshadow her tomorrow night, and I won't try to stop you. All I ask is that you at least let her spend the night."

"Fine," Danny huffed, "she can spend the night." He turned around and looked at Bridget again, and his face softened. Then turned back to his friends. "Tuck, you up for another round of Hero?"

"Nah, man. We should probably go to sleep," Tucker replied.

"Okay," Danny muttered. Sam went off into Danny's closet to change into her nightgown, and Tucker and Danny quickly threw on their own pajamas. Tucker wore footies covered with pictures of circuit boards. Danny was wearing his usual pink-and-white striped pajamas.

When Sam re-emerged in her black nightgown, she and Tucker crawled into their sleeping bags. Sam put in her earplugs to drown out Tucker's snoring. Tucker silenced his PDA for the night. Danny slid under the blankets on his own bed.

Tucker and Sam drifted off to sleep right away. Danny, on the other hand, couldn't fall asleep. He turned on his side and put his elbow on his pillow, propping up his head so he could look at Bridget. She had pulled her hair out of her ponytail, so it was spread out in a dark red fan across the pillow. Her back was turned to Danny.

She was really kind of pretty, Danny noticed. She was skinny, kind of like Sam, her lips were really too thin, and she more leggy than most girls Danny knew. She looked strong though, despite the skinniness. And…she seemed more determined than anyone else Danny had ever met. Tougher. More…fiery. You could see it in the way she had glared at everything, and hear it in the way her voice growled.

But as Danny's eyes began to drift closed, and he began to fall asleep, he would have sworn that he heard this fiery girl let out a very small whimper.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Danny woke up suddenly, uncertain as to what had woken him. Through his grogginess, he saw Bridget, sitting on the ledge of his open window. He groaned a little, disturbed by both the sunlight and the memory of Bridget's arrival the night before.

Hearing his groan, Bridget turned her head and saw Danny waking up. "Oh, gee," she gasped, "I'm sorry. Did I wake you up?"

"I don't think so," Danny muttered, sitting upright in bed.

Bridget swung her legs back inside and sat down on her sleeping bag. Danny rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and yawned deeply. "How are you?" Bridget asked him.

"Tired," Danny replied.

_BOOM-BOOM-BOOM._ "Hey kids!" boomed Jack Fenton's voice through the door. "Thought you might want some home-cooked breakfast!"

Tucker and Sam both started upright with a yell at Jack's interruption. Bridget dove towards Danny's window and somersaulted out. Danny ran to the window to make sure she was okay. She was clinging to some bricks protruding from the walls of FentonWorks. She seemed to have a pretty good grip, and she could easily climb back up to the window ledge if she started to fall. She smiled a playful smile up at Danny, and winked at him. "Go ahead," she whispered, "let him in. I'll be fine."

Danny pulled his head back into his room. Sam and Tucker were rubbing their eyes and stretching. "Dude," Tucker mumbled, "was there a redhead in here last night?"

"Bridget's currently hanging onto the wall on the side of FentonWorks," Danny replied.

"What! Why?" cried Sam.

"Don't ask me," Danny retorted, "it all happened kind of fast!"

"Sweetie," called Maddy Fenton, "are you up yet?"

Tucker and Sam both started to untangle themselves from their sleeping bags. Danny crossed the room and opened the door. Jack and Maddy Fenton were both standing in the doorway. Jack was holding a huge tray of breakfast for Danny and his friends. Sam looked at the tray, realized there was nothing vegetarian in plain sight, and groaned.

"We thought that the three of you might like a nice breakfast," Maddy announced cheerily.

Jack barged into the room and put the tray down on Danny's desk. "Here you are, kids!" he declared, beaming brightly.

"Anything else we can do for you, Danny?" Maddy asked sweetly.

"Well, actually," Danny said nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, "there is something I need to tell you guys."

Maddy looked concerned. "Aw, what is it sweetie?"

"Well…" Danny said. He heard scrabbling near the window and turned around. Bridget was pulling herself up over the windowsill.

"Ghost!" Jack shouted, producing a Fenton Foamer from seemingly nowhere.

"Dad, no!" Danny shouted, jumping in front of Bridget. "Don't! She's not a ghost!"

"Not a ghost?" Jack asked, obviously disappointed. To Danny's relief, he lowered the Fenton Foamer.

"No!" Danny cried, "She's not a ghost. But she does need your help."

Jack and Maddy looked at each other, having one of those silent parental conversations.

Ten minutes later, the entire Fenton family, Bridget, Sam, and Tucker, were all sitting around the Fenton kitchen table for a family meeting. Why Sam and Tucker were being included in the family meeting, Danny wasn't sure. But as long as they could help them make his case to his parents, Danny did not care.

Maddy was listening sympathetically to Bridget's story. "You poor dear, to lose your parents so young! And then to start losing your friends to the Guys in White! How awful!"

"But how do we know we can trust her?" Jack asked, his voice sounding very suspicious about Bridget. But then again, he always sounded like that whenever ghosts were involved. "How do we know she's not some government spy?"

"Jack…" Maddy said placatingly.

"Dad," Danny pointed out, "she spent the whole night here last night. If she was really a spy for the Guys in White, she wouldn't have learned much. She was in my room the whole time."

"How do you know?" Jack growled. He was eagerly stroking a complicated looking metal box on the kitchen table. It was probably some device that he was looking for an opportunity to test. Probably some kind of lie detector. Jack always seemed to have the perfect new invention for the situation. It usually proved either useful or disastrous for Danny.

"Dad, I'm a really light sleeper," Danny lied. "If she had left the room, I would have heard her."

"Fine," Jack huffed.

Maddy smiled. "Bridget, of course you're welcome to stay with us. And if the Guys in White do show up for you, I'm sure we can take 'em. No one messes with any friends of the Fentons."

"You're darn right they don't!" Jack cried, his enthusiasm suddenly restored. "Danny, run upstairs and set up the Fenton Guest Room for Bridget. She's more than welcome to stay with us for as long as she wants."

Bridget burst into a huge grin. "Thank you!" she cried, jumping up and giving Maddy a huge hug. "You won't regret this, ma'am! How can I ever repay you?"

Maddy hugged Bridget back. "Oh, don't worry about it, sweetie. Those Guys in White have gotten too big for their britches. It's time someone stood up to them."

"Thank you!" Bridget cried, switching her attentions to Jack, wrapping her arms as far around him as she could. Then she wrapped Danny in a bone-crushing hug, then Jazz.

"But I didn't do anything!" Jazz pointed out, wheezing a little.

"Sure, but it's your family that's taking me in! I think that deserves a hug." Jazz smiled, while at the same time trying to pry Bridget off.

Suddenly, Danny's ghost sense went off. Danny clamped his lips shut to keep his parents from seeing his ghost breath. "Um…um…this is all great! Now I'm going to run upstairs and…start finding the stuff for the guest room!"

Tucker and Sam looked at Danny, surprised. Then they saw the fading whiff of ghost breath and understood. "We're gonna go help him!" Tucker agreed, a little too loudly.

The three friends ran upstairs to Danny's bedroom. Danny stuck his head out the still-open window, and there was Skulker, floating outside. "Whelp!" Skulker shouted. "I've come back! And I'll finally capture you for my collection!"

"I'm going ghost!" Danny shouted. He launched himself straight out through the window, and as he flew through the air, the glowing rings shot out from his waist and spread, and Danny Fenton became Danny Phantom. "And I was having such a good vacation, too," he muttered. "Get the thermos!" he shouted back to Tucker and Sam. "Meet me outside!"

"On it!" Tucker shouted back, then looked down at his slightly embarrassing footie pajamas. "On second thought, can I change my clothes first?"

"No!" Danny shouted, as he wound up a ball of ecto-energy like a bowling ball and threw it at Skulker.

Skulker shot at it with an ecto-gun and it blew up. Danny turned himself intangible to avoid the recoil. "Come on," he shouted, "haven't you done enough! When will you just let it _go?_" He flew straight at Skulker, both fists extended. "Come on, come on, come on," he muttered to himself, trying to urge himself to go faster.

Skulker fired a different ecto-gun at Danny. It caught Danny right in the chest, and sent him flying back towards FentonWorks. He crashed into the trash cans. Skulker's rockets took him right up to Danny, and he landed right in front of him. "Finally!" came his victorious shout, and the arm of his suit spouted an evil-looking blade. "Finally I'll have your pelt in my trophy room!"

"Oy! Metalhead!" came a shout. Skulker turned around, the arm of his suit retracting the blade. There was a girl standing at the end of the street. No, not a girl…a ghost! A ghost with long, lime-green hair that blew in a breeze that didn't exist. She held up a hand surrounded by a cloud of green ecto-energy. "Come at me, bro," she growled, and the ecto-energy around her hand condensed into something like glass, with sharp-looking points.

"What!" Skulker roared. Danny took advantage of the distraction, and turned intangible, phasing himself backwards through the trash cans. "A _woman_ dares to challenge me! Skulker! The greatest hunter in the ghost world?"

The ghost uttered a screaming battle cry, and swung her hand down in a long, smooth arc. The needles of solid ecto-energy sped straight at Skulker. Skulker made the mistake of flying straight towards the ghost, and collided with them. One landed between the eyeholes of his battle suit, and one landed right in the middle of his chest. "Aaaaaargh!" Skulker screamed, and he was sent flying backwards. The ghost girl flew right at Skulker, more long claws of solid ecto-energy forming around her hands. They looked a little like Wulf's claws. She swung her hands at Skulker, and her claws…cut right through Skulker's battle suit!

The suit fell to the ground in neat, even slices. Skulker himself, the little green glowing amoeba, kept flying backwards and collided with the wall of FentonWorks. The ghost girl landed in front of Skulker, who had lodged in a little indent in the wall, squirming to get himself loose.

The ghost girl formed an ecto-claw around one finger, poking it against Skulker. "You can't do this to me!" Skulker squawked, "I am Skulker! I am the greatest hunter in the ghost world!" Danny, still miraculously in ghost form, poked his head up from behind the pile of trash cans.

"Oh yeah?" the ghost growled. "I'm Anna Reilly. Heard of me?"

Skulker gulped. "Oh..well…um…well…I…suppose I have." He tried to chuckle nervously. His tiny red eyes bulged.

Sam ran out of the house in her black nightgown and bare feet, clutching the Fenton Thermos. The ghost girl plucked Skulker out of the wall and held him out in front of her between an ecto-clawed thumb and forefinger. She turned around, still holding Skulker, and faced Sam. "Do you want…this?" she asked Sam.

"Yes, please," Sam replied nervously.

The ghost girl threw Skulker into the air towards Sam. Sam uncapped the Fenton Thermos, pointed it at Skulker, and pushed the button. Skulker was instantly sucked into the ghost-catching beam of the Fenton Thermos. "No!" he shouted. "I'll be back, whelp! This hunt is not over! And you'll be hearing from me, Reilly! I shall capture you both!"

Sam capped the Fenton Thermos. Danny heaved himself to his feet and ran over to Sam. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I only just came out." Sam handed the Fenton Thermos to Danny. "Where's the ghost girl?"

Danny turned around. The ghost girl was gone without a trace, except for the mess of trash cans. "Great," Danny muttered, "now I have another chore to take care of."

"Danny?" came a call from inside the house.

Tucker stuck his head out the window. "Danny, you gotta get back up here. Bridget's coming!"

Danny grabbed Sam by the arm and flew them both up through Danny's window. Danny changed back to his human form and brushed himself off.

There was a knock at the door. "Danny? Are you in there?" It was Bridget's voice. Danny went over and opened the door. Bridget was standing there awkwardly, her hands in her back pockets. "I came to get my backpack," she said awkwardly, phrasing it as if it were a question. "Also, um, where's the guest room?"

"It's next door to mine," Danny answered, pointing to his left.

"Here's your backpack," Sam muttered, tossing Bridget's backpack towards her harder than she probably needed too.

Bridget caught her bag with both hands and slung it over one shoulder. "Thanks," she said quietly, to whom it wasn't clear, and she left. Danny, Sam, and Tucker stood silently in the middle of Danny's room, listening to the sound of the door to the room next door opening, the creak of Bridget sitting on the bed, then getting back up, then closing the door.

Tucker let out a puff of relief. "Man, I thought she was going to catch you," he whispered.

"Yeah, whatever," Danny mumbled. He switched back to his ghost form. "I'm just gonna drop downstairs and flush Skulker back into the Ghost Zone. At least this time it'll be a little longer until Skulker comes back, since the ghost girl destroyed his suit."

"I can't believe we've never seen her before," Sam noted.

Outside, Danny heard the faint call of his mom's voice. "Danny! Bridget! Dad and I are taking Jazz to go grocery shopping! We'll be back in a few hours!"

"Me neither," Tucker agreed.

"But Skulker knew who she was," Danny remembered.

"Hey, Mrs. Fenton! Can I come with ya?" they heard Bridget call out her window.

"Of course you can!" Jack called back. "Come on!"

"Not only that, he seemed really scared of her," Sam added.

"And Skulker's not scared of anything," Danny added. "I think I'll go into the Ghost Zone and see what I can find out about this girl."

There was a metallic rattling outside as Bridget, apparently, slid down the drainpipe outside of her bedroom to join the Fentons in their RV.

"We're coming with you," Sam and Tucker said in unison.

"Guys…" Danny started to say.

Sam put her hand up to silence Danny. "Don't even start. You're not exactly the most popular guy in the Ghost Zone. We'll back you up in the Specter Speeder. Give us a minute to get dressed."

Danny opened his mouth to protest, but he looked at Sam's face and figured there wasn't much point.

When Sam and Tucker were dressed – and Tucker had packed himself some breakfast – the three of them snuck downstairs into the lab. Fortunately, Jack, Maddy, Jazz, and Bridget were safely out of the house for their grocery shopping, which for the Fentons was quite a trek. They wouldn't be back for hours.

Sam and Tucker opened the door to the "garage" where the Specter Speeder was stored. As they dragged it out, Danny fished around in the drawers and found the Fenton Phones. "Any preferences for weapons?" he asked Tucker and Sam.

"No thanks, man," Tucker answered, "I'll just use the Specter Speeder. This thing is tricked out!"

"If you can find the Fenton Peeler, that would be great," Sam answered. "If not, I'll just hide in the Specter Speeder and let Tucker take over."

"Found it," Danny said, pulling out the Fenton Peeler. He tossed it across the room to Sam, who caught it expertly.

Sam and Tucker put in their Fenton Phones and climbed into the Specter Speeder. "Powering up!" Tucker cried, pushing the ignition.

Danny entered his personal key code that activated the Fenton Portal. He put the Fenton Thermos that held Skulker on his belt, within easy reach. "Comm check," he said loudly and clearly into his mic.

"Roger, Danny," replied Tucker.

"Loud and clear," confirmed Sam.

Danny turned to face the open Ghost Zone, and ran a hand back through his shaggy white hair. "Stay right on my tail, guys," he warned Tucker and Sam, and he took flight straight into the Ghost Zone, with Tucker and Sam racing behind him in the Specter Speeder.


	3. Chapter 3

Danny and his friends were flying through the Ghost Zone, passing doors of all shapes and sizes. "Where do you think we should start?" came Sam's voice in Danny's ear over the Fenton Phones.

"I hate to say this," Danny said through gritted teeth, "but we're going to break into prison."

"Walker?" Tucker cried out. "Why do we have to start there?"

"Walker's got files on everyone in the Ghost Zone," Danny pointed out, "even me. If anyone's bound to know anything about that ghost girl, it's Walker."

"She said her name was Anna Reilly," Sam reminded Danny, "that gives us a place to start."

"Put on the brakes for a second," Danny said, slowing his own speed. Tucker and Sam stopped the Specter Speeder. Danny turned intangible and phased through the bottom of the Specter Speeder, taking a seat between Tucker and Sam and changing back to his human form. "This will make it a little harder for Walker to get us. But we'll still have to be careful."

"Right," Tucker agreed, grabbing the controls for the Specter Speeder. Then he paused. "Um," he asked, "does anyone remember the way to Walker's prison?"

"I programmed the coordinates into the Specter Speeder a few weeks ago," Danny answered, pressing a button. "I meant to have you program in a protocol that would alert anyone driving the Specter Speeder if they were getting too close to Walker's prison – or any other particularly dangerous spots."

"Good idea," Sam said.

"Thanks," Danny said. "Although good thing I didn't have you install it yet. The autopilot should take us right to Walker's lair." He pushed a yellow button.

"Auto-Jack activated!" barked Jack Fenton's voice from the speakers. "Buckle up!"

"Well, at least there isn't an inflatable Dad in the Specter Speeder," Danny muttered, fastening his seatbelt. "Hold on, guys. This thing on auto-pilot drives exactly the way my dad does."

Sam and Tucker immediately scrambled for their seatbelts. "Man, I'm gonna regret packing breakfast now," Tucker moaned.

The Specter Speeder took off with a speed that threw all three friends back against their seats with a thump. Sam squeezed her eyes shut and instinctively reached out for Danny's hand. Danny did the same thing. They held onto each other tightly. Tucker doubled up and wrapped his arms around his stomach.

A few minutes later, the Specter Speeder froze about thirty yards away from Walker's prison. "Thank you for using the Auto-Jack!" Jack's voice told them cheerily, and the Specter Speeder was quiet.

Danny cautiously opened one eye, then the other. Then he looked down at his hand intertwined tightly with Sam's. It startled him and he let go. To cover up the awkwardness, he jumped out of his seat and pressed his face against the windshield. There was Walker's prison, as dark and imposing as ever.

"How are we getting in?" Sam asked, joining Danny against the windshield.

"We'll just have to sneak into Walker's office, and find where he keeps his background files," Danny answered.

"Great plan," Sam replied, rolling her eyes.

"Thanks," Danny answered distractedly. "Tucker, take the wheel."

"On it, Danny." Tucker leapt into the driver's seat and took the wheel. "Where we headed?"

"I'm going to check and make sure that Walker's office is empty. When I give you the signal, just drive straight into Walker's office. You'll have to cover me with the Specter Speeder while I look for the ghost girl's file."

"On it," Tucker said, putting the Specter Speeder into drive.

"Going ghost!" Danny cried. He stood back from the windshield and stuck his fists in the air as he switched back to his ghost form. He turned invisible.

"Danny?" Sam cried. She always got nervous whenever Danny turned invisible.

"I'm right here, Sam," Danny called. "I'm just going to take a look into Walker's prison. You'll be able to hear me over the Fenton Phones the whole time. As soon as I give the signal, you and Tucker blast through the wall and hold off as many of Walker's goons as you can."

"Got it," Sam replied, pulling the Fenton Peeler out of the glove compartment.

Danny phased out of the Specter Speeder and flew towards the window of Walker's office, phasing straight through it. He floated in the middle of Walker's office, looking around. The door directly in front of him, he remembered, led into the body of the prison itself. So he'd have to check the side doors. He poked his intangible head through the one on his right. It was a closet full of Walker's white suits. It smelled like mothballs and gunpowder, and Danny gagged.

"Who's there?" came a guttural roar from behind Danny.

Danny gasped and pulled his head out of the closet, accidentally becoming visible again. Sure enough, Walker was right behind him. Walker grabbed Danny around the throat and hoisted him up into the air. "Gotcha, punk!" Walker shouted.

"Guys," Danny wheezed, kicking against Walker's grip, "get in here! Now!"

The Specter Speeder raced through the wall, with Sam, fully decked out in the Fenton Peeler, clinging onto the bumper. "Put 'em up, Walker!" she hollered.

Tucker punched a button on the dashboard of the Specter Speeder, and three different ecto-guns came out, pointed right at Walker. "Danny! Change back!" Tucker yelled over the Fenton Phones.

"Can't…can't think straight…can't…" Danny gasped.

"Come on," Tucker groaned, and fired one of the ecto-guns. The shot hit Walker in the chest and sent him flying backward into the wall. He released Danny, who fell on the floor with a thump.

"Ugh!" Danny cried out as he hit the ground. He pushed himself to his feet, and ran over to Walker, grabbing his shoulder, and pointing a fist surrounded with green ecto-energy right in Walker's face. "We don't want trouble, Walker!" he growled, trying to sound imposing. "We just need information. Where do you keep your files?"

"Get off me, punk!" Walker roared.

Instantly, Danny vaporized his hat with an ecto-blast. "Next one's gonna be lower," he growled in Walker's face. "Your file on Anna Reilly. Where do you keep it?"

"Anna Reilly?" Walker stopped pushing against Danny's hand. "You're after her, too?"

"We're after whatever we can find on her," Danny replied, still trying to sound menacing. "Where do you keep your file on her?"

"Save it, ghost kid," Walker grunted, "I won't hurt you, or your friends."

Danny let the ecto-energy around his hand dissipate, but he kept his grip on Walker. "Why should I believe you?" he muttered.

"Because I'm going to let you go. And until you find Anna Reilly and bring her to me, I'm going to leave you alone. And once you find her, we can discuss making those arrangements permanent."

Danny slowly released Walker, who stood up and opened one of the top drawers in his desk. He withdrew a thin manila folder and handed it to Danny. "Here, ghost kid," he grunted. "That's everything we have on Anna Reilly."

"It's not much," Danny commented, taking the folder.

"Well, we don't have much," Walker replied.

Danny opened the folder. Paper-clipped to the inside was a portrait. Sure enough, it matched the ghost girl that had fought Skulker in Amity Park. She wore a purple button-down blouse, black jeans, and combat boots. Underneath the picture was a list of her ghost powers, but nothing seemed particularly extraordinary about them. She just looked…average. Like Danny. Inside the folder was a stack of three sheets of paper, that listed all of the reported sightings of Anna Reilly. "Anything that you can tell us that this file won't?" he asked Walker.

Walker sat down in his chair and stroked his chin. "Anna Reilly is the fiercest fighter I have ever come across. And she'll fight whatever she comes across, for no reason at all. Every single sighting of her in that file ended in a fight."

"What is she, a ghost of war or something?" Sam asked, looking over Danny's shoulder. Anna Reilly did kind of look the part of a ghost of war, with the long hair, the practical clothes and…now Danny noticed – the shotgun slung around her shoulder. Danny had never seen a ghost – or anyone involved in the ghost world – who carried anything near resembling a good old-fashioned shotgun. Now, he got nervous.

"Well," Walker replied, leaning back in his chair, "that's the worst part. We don't know. It doesn't look like she's a ghost of anything."

"What?" Danny gasped. "How is that possible? Every ghost in the Ghost Zone is a ghost of something, has a realm where they live. What about her?"

"She doesn't seem to live here," Walker answered, and he sounded incredibly frustrated by that fact. "We've looked everywhere in the Ghost Zone that we've dared, and we've dared to go into quite a few places to get this girl. She's nowhere. She'll turn up, and whip someone in a fight, and disappear."

"Is there anyone in the Ghost Zone who might know more about her than you and your goons do?" Danny asked.

"Well," Walker answered, "I don't know. Though I definitely wouldn't ask the ghosts that she's fought with. They don't like to talk about it."


	4. Chapter 4

Danny, Tucker, and Sam – having dropped off Skulker in some remote corner of the Ghost Zone – were speeding back towards the Fenton Portal. Danny, in human form, was still holding Anna Reilly's file, scouring the few pages in it for any further information. If there was any, he wasn't finding it. "It looks like she's had a tangle with every powerful ghost in the Ghost Zone," Danny commented, looking through the list of reported incidents. "The Fright Knight, Walker, Penelope Spectra...wow," Danny commented, "She even ran into the Ghost King while he was loose!"

"What?" Sam gasped. "How is she still around?"

"I don't even know," Danny said, scanning the page, "but it looks like she got a few good punches in before he kicked her to the other end of the Ghost Zone. And there's so many other ghosts here I've never even heard of!"

"Anything interesting about her powers?" Tucker asked, turning the Specter Speeder sharply to the left.

"Nothing really interesting," Danny said, turning to the corresponding page in Anna Reilly's file. "Ecto-blasts from her hands, invisibility, intangibility, just like me…but you remember from the fight today? She can turn ecto-energy solid. I can make a shield, but I can't manipulate ecto-energy nearly as well as she can. That might be a valuable skill to pick up." He ran his finger down the list. "Shotgun that fires ecto-energy bullets," he muttered, "and…no way…" Danny groaned. "She can make a ghostly wail!"

"She can make a _whale?_" Tucker cried. "Wow, that must take a _lot_ of ecto-energy."

"No, not a _whale_," Danny replied, pointing to the line in the file, "a _wail_, like the sound! Like I used to defeat the evil me!"

"What?" Sam cried out, leaning farther over Danny's shoulder to try to read the file more clearly. "That can't be right! You created the ghostly wail!"

"I know!" Danny moaned. "Great, this just keeps getting better and better." He closed the file and laid it in his lap. "I wasn't going to mess with this ghost," Danny muttered, "I just wanted to find out who she was."

"Well," said Sam, taking the file from Danny's lap and opening it, "it looks like her last appearance before today was about two months ago." She turned up one of the pages. "And it looks like all of her other appearances are pretty evenly spaced. All about two weeks apart."

"That seems a little odd, doesn't it?" Tucker asked.

"Who cares?" Danny replied. "I hate to say it, but I feel like I have to go after her."

"Danny, no!" Sam cried out, grabbing Danny's shoulder. "You don't have to do that."

"Sam, she's a danger to the Ghost Zone. And if she's started appearing in the human world, she's a danger to that too. And that makes her my responsibility."

"Fenton Portal, dead ahead," Tucker reported from the driver's seat.

Sam and Danny both sat back in their seats as Tucker pulled into the Fenton Lab. "You're getting better at parking," Danny commented as Tucker pulled into the lab.

"Thanks, man," Tucker said, and he turned the Specter Speeder into the garage.

Danny quickly reverted to his ghost form, grabbed Tucker and Sam, and phased them out of the back of the Specter Speeder. Once they were out, Danny set them down and reverted back to his human form.

Upstairs, the three heard a door slam. "Danny," called Maddy, "we're home!"

Sam stashed the Fenton Peeler in a desk drawer along with her Fenton Phones. Tucker pulled the Fenton Phones out of his ears and stuck them in his pockets. Danny didn't bother trying to hide the file. His parents were oblivious enough, that he could lie to them easily.

The three friends ran upstairs. Jack was hauling bags of groceries into the kitchen. "One to the Ops Center with cargo," he puffed. "Hey kids!" he called to Danny and his friends, as the tube came down and sucked him and his groceries up to the Ops Center to restock the emergency fridge.

Maddy and Jazz came into the kitchen, significantly less burdened than Jack. "Hi, sweetie," Maddy greeted Danny, "hey kids."

"Hey, Mrs. Fenton," Tucker replied. "You need help with the groceries?" he added.

"No thanks, Tucker," Maddy answered, "that's so sweet of you to offer. But we're almost done."

"Mom, we'll be in my room if you need us, OK?" Danny said, rounding up Sam and Tucker and pushing them towards the door. "Tucker and Sam and I have something to work on, OK?"

"Alright, sweetie," Maddy replied. "Have fun."

Danny, Tucker, and Sam all bolted up to Danny's room. Instinctively, they all began to set up a war room. Tucker plopped himself in front of Danny's computer and began to hook himself into his tech world. Sam went into Danny's closet and pulled out a piece of corkboard. She opened Anna Reilly's file and began pinning every piece of paper inside to the corkboard. Danny opened up the team's map of the Ghost Zone and placed that on the corkboard, sticking pushpins in it as he cross-referenced the list of sightings with locations that they had plotted on the map.

_Tock-tock-tock._ "Danny?"

The team froze. Tucker, Danny and Sam all looked around at each other. _It's Bridget_ Sam mouthed at Danny. Danny made a sweeping motion with his hand. Sam and Danny began to drag the corkboard back into the closet. Tucker shut down everything related to the Ghost Zone and pulled up a couple windows of video games and email to cover his tracks.

Danny went over to the door and opened it. Bridget was standing there, chewing her lip, with one arm folded across her chest. "Is everything okay?" she asked nervously. "I heard thumping when we got home, and you and your friends disappeared pretty fast. I thought something might be up."

"Everything's fine, Bridget," Danny grunted, starting to close the door. But something stopped the door halfway. It was Bridget's fist.

"Danny, I need to talk to you. And your friends," Bridget added urgently. "Please."

"Not now, Bridget," Danny half shouted, and tried to close the door again.

"No, Danny," Bridget roared, "I need you to _listen_ to me!"

Danny, Tucker, and Sam were all thrown against the back wall of Danny's room. Danny slammed spead-eagled against the wall and slowly slid down, landing in a crumpled heap on the floor. Sam seemed to bounce of the wall and land with a heavy _thump_ on all fours. Tucker, in his usual Tucker Foley style, fell flat on his face.

Danny staggered upright, to see Bridget standing aghast in Danny's doorway, stupefied by what she had done. Her eyes were glowing bright green. Just like Danny's did when he was angry.


	5. Chapter 5

Danny swore under his breath.

"I don't think I've ever heard you use _those_ words before," Tucker commented.

"I've never had a good reason to use those words before," Danny growled. He pushed himself up to his knees, and then his feet. His fists were clenched.

Bridget took a step back, holding her hands up in the universal gesture of peace. "Please, Danny," she pleaded, "I don't want to fight you, I just need your help."

"Why should we believe anything you say?" Sam challenged her, pushing herself to her feet to stand beside Danny.

"Because I could have easily attacked Danny today, too. And you, and Tucker, and Jazz, and Danny's parents," Bridget pointed out. "And I'm strong enough to leave a good mark. But I didn't. I attacked Skulker. I helped you."

Danny slowly lowered his fists, and pointed to the bed. "Sit," he barked.

Bridget, keeping her hands up, walked slowly into Danny's room and sat down on the bed. Sam moved across the room and shut the door. She leaned back against it to keep any unwanted visitors out. Danny pulled over a chair and sat right across from Bridget, so close their knees were almost touching. Tucker leaned back against the edge of Danny's desk, arms folded.

"So what's your real name?" Danny muttered.

Bridget took a deep breath. "Anna Reilly is the name I was born with," she answered slowly. "I took the name Bridget Morrigan when I went on the run from the Guys in White."

"And _what_ are you, really?" Danny asked.

Bridget blinked at him as if this should have been obvious. "I'm a halfa. Just like you." She paused, and then added, "Danny Phantom."

Danny took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "All right. What's your story?"

Bridget looked down at the bedclothes and started pulling at them. "Some of what I told you last night was true," she began, "about being on the run from the Guys in White. But I lied about the reasons why I ran.

"I was telling the truth about those kids going missing. And I told you the truth about me going to look for them, and getting caught. But I didn't get away. They got before I even got close to the door. I kicked and punched and tried to get away, but they were all grown up, and a lot stronger than me."

"All grown up?" Danny repeated, and then a sudden realization dawned on him. "You didn't get caught by the Guys in White two months ago, did you?"

Bridget silently shook her head.

"How long ago?" Danny asked.

Bridget didn't reply.

"Bridget, how long?" Danny asked again.

Bridget chewed her lip. "Six years ago. I was nine."

Danny quietly swore again.

"Oh my gosh," Sam whispered, one hand flying to cover her mouth. Tucker's jaw dropped.

"What have they been doing with you for six _years_?" Danny asked Bridget incredulously.

Bridget shrugged, her face crumpling into a scowl. "Whatever they could think of, I guess. When they caught me, they figured out how tough I was. And they decided to keep me around. Figured I could stand up to whatever they put me through. The perfect lab rat.

"I don't remember most of what they did. They kept me in…I don't want to say suspended animation, because that wasn't what it was. It was just a kind of…stasis…keeping me unconscious in a tank until they needed me for their experiments. But sometimes…in the tank…I'd wake up. I'd be able to see, and hear…and I'd start screaming…" A tear rolled down Bridget's cheek. "You can't imagine that…every few weeks, you wake up, you don't remember what they've done to you, but you might be glowing green, or anything really. You're tied up and floating in a glass cylinder…and time's passing. You can see it passing because the scientists get older, your body is changing…and you don't know anything. Eventually, they had to put me in a tank of soundproofed glass. Because they couldn't handle the screaming.

"And then, one day…they pulled me out, for another experiment, like they did every once in a while. They scrubbed me out, cleaned any ecto-residue out of me…and put me in a box. They stuck what felt like a thousand needles in me, everywhere, and locked me inside. Then everything turned green…and I don't remember too much until I woke up again a week or two later.

"I know, you don't believe me," Bridget barked suddenly, "but you think I could make this up? I can prove it." Bridget thrust out one arm. She had put on a hoodie before she had gone out shopping with the Fentons. She pulled up the sleeve and turned her arm so that the inside of her wrist was facing Danny. "There," she said, bitter and angry, "the scars."

Danny carefully leaned over to look at Bridget's arm. There were hundreds and hundreds of long, thin tears in the skin that had scarred over. "When they turned the green light on," Bridget continued, pulling her arm back and rolling her sleeve back down, "it was apparently pretty painful. I kept thrashing around, and the needles they had put in me…to infuse me with ecto-energy…tore right through my skin."

Danny and Tucker flinched at the thought.

"But they did it," Bridget added. "They did what they were trying to do. They made their own half-ghost."

"How long ago was this?" Danny asked.

Bridget shrugged. "How long have you been a halfa? The Guys in White were trying to figure out how to make a half-ghost of their own as soon as they found out about you."

"Why?" Danny asked, puzzled.

Bridget glared at him. "Danny, why do you think?" Danny continued to stare blankly at Bridget, so she continued. "Danny, they wanted to use me to attack you!"

"What?" Danny shouted.

"Keep your voice down," Sam whispered through clenched teeth.

Danny clenched his fists on his knees.

Bridget turned around on the bed, and lifted up her ponytail. "See those?" she asked softly.

Danny leaned forward and inspected the back of Bridget's neck. There were more scars, small circular puncture wounds evenly spaced on either side of Bridget's spinal cord, starting at her hairline and disappearing into her collar. "What are those?" he asked reaching out a finger and gently touching one.

"Don't touch those!" Bridget screamed, recoiling fast and lying face down on the bed, holding onto the bedspread so tightly that it looked like she thought she was going to fly away. Fortunately, her face was pressed into the bedspread and it muffled her scream.

Danny pulled his hand back as if he had been burned. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said quickly, "I didn't know. Bridget, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"

"Don't _touch_ me for a minute," Bridget gasped, her grip on the bedspread tightening. She was taking deep, fast breaths, as if she was trying desperately to keep control. "Just don't touch me…" she gasped again, more softly. The team sat in silence for a minute, staring aghast at Bridget while her breathing quieted and slowed.

Finally, Bridget slowly pushed herself upright and turned back around. Danny was taken aback by her face. She looked hollow, and terrified. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I'm sorry I screamed."

"What _are_ those scars?" Tucker asked.

Bridget swallowed hard. "From when they kept me plugged into a mind-control device."

"_Plugged in?_" Tucker asked.

"Yeah," Bridget answered. "They stuck probes into the back of my neck, deep enough to connect with my spinal cord. They could send signals to my brain and my body, control everything I did and said. And thought. That's how they trained me to use my ghost powers. They just…downloaded lessons and training videos into my brain." One corner of her mouth twitched. "That's also why my ghost form doesn't have an Irish accent. It annoyed the scientists, so…well, they trained my ghost half out of it."

"Okay…okay…" Danny said, putting up a hand to cut Bridget off. "I believe you about the Guys in White. Scars that bad, in the back of your neck. Nobody could do that to themselves just to sell a cover story. But you still have to explain why you've been attacking the Ghost Zone."

"I didn't mean to, Danny," Bridget pleaded. "From time to time, the Guys in White pulled me out of stasis, pointed me towards the Ghost Zone, and sent me off in a general direction. They'd plug me into some portable version of the mind control device and point me in a random direction, under orders to attack whoever I came across first."

"Why?" Danny asked incredulously. "Why would they do that, and risk their most valuable prize?"

"Testing," Bridget muttered sullenly. "And when I'd finish, they'd call me back, put me back in stasis, and that was the end of that."

"When did you escape?" Sam asked. "How did you escape?"

"About two months ago, I woke up, floating in stasis, and had another one of my…fits. They had gotten worse, recently. It was only after they turned me into a half-ghost that they put me on the mind-control device, because then they figured that they needed…a certain extra degree of security. So I would gain consciousness, and then I would feel…the probes from the mind control machine…in my neck. It was so painful…and I would start the screaming. But this one…it was worse than the others. I was screaming and thrashing around and they were trying to figure out how to sedate me…and then the tank shattered."

"The ghostly wail," Danny murmured.

"There's a name for that?"

"Yeah, but that doesn't matter right now," Danny answered, "go on."

"When the tank shattered, at first nothing really happened," Bridget continued. "I fell down on the floor, but I couldn't move, because I was still tied up, and I still had the device implanted in my neck. I was a little distracted. But the Guys in White couldn't do anything either. I had blown them all back with my screaming. But…someone cut me out. One of the janitor boys, he let me go and pulled the device out of my neck. The holes were still there, though. They just recently healed up.

"The boy helped me fight they Guys in White. Fortunately, there weren't many of the Guys in White actually on site. Mainly scientists, who weren't really very well trained in defending themselves from ghosts, and the Guys in White trained me very well in fighting…well, everything. There were only three actual Guys in White in the lab, and we barely managed to get them out of the way.

"When I could get out, I took the backpack, and started heading west. I hoofed it across Ireland, until I got to a city called Galway. An old friend of my parents hooked me up with my shotgun, and I…well, I flew to America in my ghost form. I stowed away on ships when I was tired."

"How did you know to come to Amity Park?" Tucker asked.

"There was a file on the Fenton family in the lab. I didn't get a good look at it, but it gave me a place to go," Bridget answered. "And while I was crossing America…Amity Park kept showing up on the television, with all of the ghost attacks – and when you revealed yourself as Danny Phantom."

"What?" cried Danny, "I thought I fixed reality so that wouldn't happen!"

"You missed a spot, I guess. I don't know, maybe my ghost powers somehow protected me. But that's how I knew you would help."

"You thought I would be more willing to help one of my own," Danny murmured, repeating Bridget's words from the night before.

"Exactly," Bridget said. "I was planning on telling you eventually, but after I fought Skulker…I figured you'd be asking questions, and it would be better to tell you now." She stood up from the bed, and moved into the middle of the room. She jumped up in the air and turned a somersault, and glowing white rings of ecto-energy split her body in half, spreading to the sides.

Anna Reilly was now floating in the air in front of Danny. Purple button-down blouse, black military-issue cargo pants, tucked into black combat boots. "I have to hand it to you," Sam commented, "you have quite a sense of style."

"The Guys in White dressed me like this before they stuck me in the box and gave me my ghost powers," Bridget replied. "But I do like it." She landed on the floor in front of Danny, gazing at him pleadingly. "Please, Danny," she begged, "I still need your help, halfa or not. Will you still let me stay?"

Danny stood up and crossed to Bridget, changing into his ghost form as he went. He stood in front of her, inspecting her carefully. "Guys, what do you think?" he asked his friends.

"Well, we turned out to be right about her hiding something," Tucker answered, "but I don't think she wants to hurt us. And if the Guys in White manage to find her, we can still use the story she gave us when she first came here, and no one has to know you're Danny Phantom."

"Tucker's right," Sam agreed, "and if I think Tucker's right, then it must be a good idea. You know I hate admitting when Tucker's right."

Danny looked into Bridget's eyes. "So…what do you prefer to be called?" he asked.

Bridget smiled. "I miss being called Anna. But I can't go by Anna now. I don't want to tip off the Guys in White."

"We'll call you Anna in private." Danny put his hand on Bridget's – no, Anna's – shoulder. "Anna, I swear – we'll protect you from the Guys in White. You'll never have to go back to that. I will never let anything bad happen to you. I promise."

Anna put out a hand and tousled Danny's white hair. "Thanks, Danny."

"Hey!" Danny interjected. He chuckled and pushed Anna's arm away, punching her lightly on the arm.

Anna gave Danny a hug, and Tucker and Sam came over and joined in. After they all let go, Danny suddenly smacked his head to his forehead and groaned. "Oh, _no_," he moaned, "I just realized. Now we have to explain this whole mess to _Jazz_."


	6. Chapter 6

"Again!" Sam barked.

Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Anna were embroiled in Danny's weekly training session, which Anna had convinced Danny to let her join in on. Sam and Tucker had maintained that Anna didn't need the training, but Danny had agreed anyway.

Danny and Anna, in ghost form, both leapt into the air and flew towards the obstacle course that Danny and his friends had installed in the Fenton Lab. Anna went first, shooting straight through the hoops like a missile. She grabbed the last one and swung around it like a trapeze artist, shooting an ecto-blast out of her feet towards the target that popped up from behind a lab bench. She missed the target by a few inches and struck the wall, leaving a large scorch mark and a gob of goo.

"Oh!" Tucker shouted, making a note on a pad. "Get her, Danny!"

Danny did his usual loop-di-loops through the hoops sticking out of the ceiling. He flew towards the wall, pushed himself off with his feet, and launched himself at a new target, firing ecto-blasts out of his hands. He shattered the target. "Ha-ha!" he cried out, "Excellent!" Then, "Whoa!" as a small rocket flew at him. He started to fly away to give himself more time to dodge, but then the rocket burst in midair.

Danny looked down to find Anna crouched on the floor, her smoking shotgun aimed into the air. She swung it back over her shoulder and slowly stood back up. She got a look at Danny's astonished face and burst out laughing. "Wow," she managed to get out, "your…face…is…_brilliant._"

"Guys in White did a good job with you," Sam commented, making a note on the clipboard propped on her hip.

"Guys in White didn't teach me that," Anna replied, brushing some dust off her cargo pants, "Mother did."

"Your parents taught you fighting?" Tucker asked.

"Well, they taught me how to shoot," Anna answered.

"Why did they teach you how to shoot a gun?" Danny asked, landing on the floor in near Tucker and Sam.

"We kept a gun in the house," Anna answered. She kept the shotgun on a sling that ran across the front of her body and over her shoulder. She lifted it up and over her head, holding the barrel in her hands. "The best way to teach a little kid to treat a gun with caution, is to teach 'em how to handle it properly."

"Care to teach me?" Danny asked.

"Hell, no," Anna answered, "This is my talent. Get your own."

_Tock-tock-tock._ "Danny?"

"Come on down, Jazz," Danny called up to her.

Jazz came downstairs clutching her journal to her chest. "No sign of Mom and Dad, so I thought I'd come down here and see how training was going."

It had been a week since Danny had told Jazz, and she had taken the news of "Bridget's" true identity very well, all things considered. At first, she had even tried to corner Anna and interview her about her experience being held by the Guys in White, as part of a psychology thesis she wanted to write about. After about ten minutes of obnoxious questions, Anna had slapped Jazz in the face, and Sam had had to drag Anna out of Jazz's room. After Sam lectured Jazz for fifteen minutes on the virtues of tact, Anna had come in, whey-faced and red-eyed, and apologized to Jazz. Tucker and Danny had been immersed in another round of Hero in Danny's room and hadn't actually been present for the fight, which Tucker had been extremely disappointed about.

"Danny," Jazz added, "I've been thinking. If Anna's going to be staying with us for a while, she's going to have to go to school with us in the fall."

"Jazz," Danny complained, "it's summer vacation! Do we have to talk about school _now?_"

"Yes, we do," Jazz answered pertly. "Because if Anna has been trapped by the Guys in White for six years, she's going to need serious tutoring in order to be able to go to Casper High with us."

"Jazz, she can't go to school," Tucker argued. "If she starts showing her face in school, the Guys in White will be all over her."

"_She_," Anna called over to them, "is also in the room." Anna had slunk off to a corner and slid down against a filing cabinet to take a seat on the floor. She had propped her shotgun up next to her. "Jazz is right. I should be going to school."

"Anna, we can't take that risk," Danny pointed out. "I promised you I would protect you, I can't let you risk that by going out in public like that."

"You're going to take an even bigger risk if word starts to get out that the Fentons are keeping a strange girl in their house that no one sees." Anna changed back into her human form. "I know how these guys work. I spent six years floating in their tank."

"But what do you want to do, then?" Sam asked. "If you don't think you're safe in FentonWorks, and you're definitely not safe at Casper, what are you going to do?"

"I never said I thought I wasn't safe at Casper," Anna retorted. "That was your decision. And I do not agree with it." Anna stood up and walked towards the others, speaking as she moved. "No one involved with the Guys in White should know where I went after we escaped. No one involved with the Guys in White should know that I started going by Bridget Morrigan after I escaped. I dyed my hair, I changed my name, and I left my country. If they can find me, they're very good. And you know they're not."

"You dyed your hair?" Sam asked incredulously.

"I'm blonde."

Tucker blinked.

"I like it this way," Danny replied, with perfect honesty.

Anna smiled shyly. "Thanks."

Sam pinched Danny's arm. "Focus, guys. So what are you going to do, then?"

Anna shrugged. "Keep the hair color, keep the name, and go to school like nothing ever happened. Irish foreign exchange student living with the Fenton family." Anna turned to Jazz. "And I am going to need some tutoring. The Guys in White taught me some things while I was trapped there, but I don't know if I've learned enough to go into an American school like nothing ever happened. I'm guessing you're a better tutor than these three?" She gestured at Danny, Sam, and Tucker.

"She is," Danny replied. "She pretty much taught me algebra."

"Well," Anna sighed, "I guess the ghost training is going to have to wait."

"I've already talked to Mr. Lancer," Jazz put in. "He's at the school waiting for us."

"Let me grab my backpack," Anna told Jazz. She grabbed her shotgun.

"It just occurred to me," Tucker interjected. "When you showed up at FentonWorks, you didn't have that with you."

"What," Anna asked, holding up the shotgun, "this? Of course not. I hid it while I made my case to you. I figured you probably wouldn't let an armed girl into your house. Even if she was on the run from evil government agents. I got it back and hid it in my room after the Fentons agreed to let me stay." She took off up the stairs.

Once Anna was safely gone, Danny turned to Jazz. "Jazz, are you sure this is a good idea?" he asked her.

"No," Jazz replied. "But Anna's right. It's the best idea we've got."

Anna phased through the ceiling and came floating down to the floor, backpack slung over one shoulder, flipping through the pages of a passport. "This should work just fine," she said, landing in front of Jazz.

"Where did you get a passport?" Sam asked.

"Same old crab in Galway who gave me my shotgun," Anna replied nonchalantly.

Sam blinked at Anna.

"What?" Anna asked. "You didn't think it was real, did you?" She put the passport in a pouch of her backpack. "Let's go, Jazz."

Jazz and Anna ran up the stairs, leaving Danny, Tucker and Sam in the basement.

"This is a _bad_ idea," Danny said, changing back into his human form.

"Do you want to follow them upstairs and talk them out of it?" Sam replied, pointing up the stairs after them.

Jazz drove herself and Anna to Casper High in her red SUV. Jazz navigated the familiar route to Casper absentmindedly, trying to figure out a way to break the awkward silence in the car. "I really am sorry about the way I acted earlier, Anna."

"It's fine," Anna muttered, sullenly.

"No, it's not," Jazz replied emphatically.

"Jazz, love," Anna interrupted, "I've been floating in a tank since I was nine. I'm not exactly a great communicator."

The car lapsed into silence again. "It's still none of my business," Jazz finally said.

"No, it's not," Anna agreed. More silence. "But, maybe I would like to talk about it," Anna added sullenly.

Jazz sharply braked at a red light. "You mean that?"

Anna laughed harshly. "I just told you, I've been floating in a tank since I was nine. Not exactly a great environment for dealing with my issues."

Jazz gripped the steering wheel as she waited for the light to change. She had been reading about psychology and working with unhappy high school students for years. But this was the first real case she had ever faced. "I'll listen," she said softly. "I want to help you, Anna. We all want to help you."

"I know," Anna whispered, and she turned her face away from Jazz.

Jazz finally pulled into the Casper High parking lot. Mr. Lancer was waiting for them on the steps, beaming. Jazz reached over and touched Anna's shoulder, covered by a hoodie despite the July heat. "We're here," she told Anna.

Anna silently opened the passenger door and clambered out of the car. Jazz came around the front of the car and led her to Mr. Lancer. By the time they were close enough for him to notice, Anna was smiling widely enough to split her face in half.

"Ah, Miss Fenton," Mr. Lancer said, shaking Jazz's hand. "A pleasure to see you again, as always. Is your brother keeping himself out of trouble?"

"Yes, sir," Jazz replied brightly.

"Keeping up on his summer homework?" Mr. Lancer asked pointedly.

"I work with him every day, Mr. Lancer."

"Good." Mr. Lancer turned his attention to Anna. "And this must be the foreign exchange student you were telling me about."

Anna stretched out one hand, and suddenly Jazz understood the purpose of the hoodie. "Bridget Morrigan, sir," Anna greeted Mr. Lancer, her Irish accent strong. Her hair, let down from its ponytail, shifted across her neck as she shook Mr. Lancer's hand. "Pleased to meet you."


	7. Chapter 7

"Danny, you didn't have to do this," Anna protested.

"I wanted to, though," Danny countered. "Tucker and Sam are out of town, so I thought we could do something together. Just us two halfas." He winked at Anna, who giggled.

Danny and Anna were in the kitchen at FentonWorks. Danny had pulled out the old picnic basket and he and Anna were making sandwiches. He was packing roast beef, while Anna was packing ham and turkey. She had tried to slice off ham from the Emergency Ham, not really knowing what it was, until Danny managed to stop her.

Danny opened the pantry and began to rummage. "Got a preference on chip flavor?" he called to Anna.

"I've never had…chips," Anna said. "At least, your version of chips."

Danny pulled his head out of the pantry and stared at Anna, openmouthed. "No way!" he shouted, "No way you've never had potato chips!"

Anna shrugged. "Life in an Irish orphanage, and then in a laboratory. Some things get missed." They were silent for a moment.

"Well then," Danny said, with forced cheeriness, and he began pulling bags of different flavors of chips out of the pantry. "Original," he muttered to himself, ticking off a list, "BBQ, sour cream and onion, salt and vinegar, spicy chili…" He pulled out one bag of chips and held it, staring at it. "What the…"

The bag was labeled, very prominently, "FUDGE-A-LICIOUS RUFFLES!"

"This must be Dad's," Danny said to himself, and, deciding not to expose Anna to that much at once, put the bag back. "There's soda in the fridge," he called to Anna over his shoulder. "Can you grab me a cola?"

"Sure," Anna answered, and Danny heard the fridge door open. "Do you have bottled water, by any chance?"

Danny backed out of the pantry, laden with bags of potato chips. "Sure we do," he said, "but don't you want a soda?"

"No, thanks," Anna replied, pulling out a couple of cans of cola for Danny. "I just need water."

"Alright," Danny said, piling the bags of chips into the picnic basket. "If you say so." He tossed in a few of the cookies that Maddie Fenton had made earlier that week. Anna put in a couple of apples and a couple of bottles of water. Danny shut the lid of the picnic basket.

"So where are we going?" Anna asked eagerly. "You never told me."

"I wanted it to be a surprise," Danny said. "And it still will be. Can you fly and be invisible at the same time?"

"Of course," Anna said, "I have that much control, at least. Why?"

"I don't want anyone to spot you," Danny reminded her. "Anna, you keep forgetting you're on the run. If word gets out there's a new ghost in Amity Park…"

"Fine," Anna huffed.

"Good." Danny changed into his ghost form. "I promise, you can spend as much time in your ghost form as you want when we get to our picnic."

Anna changed into her ghost form, and picked up her shotgun from where it rested on the table. "How will I know where we're going?" she asked, as she slung it over her head and shoulder.

"Do you have to take that everywhere with you?" Danny replied, ignoring her question.

"What?" Anna shrugged. "Some of us don't have the liberty of carrying our weapons around with us without any hassle."

"Follow me," Danny said. He turned around and picked up the picnic basket. When he turned around, Anna was gone. "Anna?"

"What?" Anna huffed, as she popped back into view. "Do you want me visible or not?"

"Sorry," Danny apologized, "you just scared me."

Anna folded her arms across her chest, blew a lock of her floating hair out of her face, and disappeared again. Danny bent his knees and launched himself upward, through the ceiling of FentonWorks and into the sky over Amity Park. "You with me?" he called to Anna.

"Right here," came her voice from somewhere around his ankles. "Can't you fly any faster?"

"One hundred and fifteen miles per hour, last time we checked," Danny reported proudly. The day they had broken his previous record of one hundred and twelve miles per hour had been fantastic. "But that was when I didn't have a picnic basket. Stay on my tail."

"On it." Danny felt a slap on his ankle.

Danny pointed himself northwest, towards Lake Eerie and Wisconsin. "What's your top speed?" Danny asked her, taking off.

"Not sure," Anna said, "I never heard them report the results of my tests. But I think it's high."

"Well, let's see just how high it is," Danny responded playfully. He bunched up his body and sprung off, hightailing it towards their picnic destination.

"Hey!" Anna shouted after him, and he heard the slight whistle of Anna following him at high speed.

They flew for about half an hour in silence, Danny focusing on the route they were taking, Anna taking in the landscape below her. "How much farther?" she finally asked, a little exasperated.

"Relax," Danny assured her, "we're almost there."

Fifteen minutes later, Danny came to a stop. Anna, who had been flying just below Danny, came to a silent screeching halt, and ran face-first into Danny's hazmat boots. She swore.

"Whoa!" Danny cried. "Time for a landing. Stay right there." He dropped down to the ground, where he perched the picnic basket on a rock. He flew back up to hover in front of Anna. Anna had her hands up over her face. "You okay?" Danny asked her.

"Face hurts," Anna grunted. "One of your boots got me in the eye."

"Here." Danny reached out and took Anna's wrists. "Come on down. Slowly." Danny slowly floated to the ground, taking Anna with him. "Go intangible," Danny warned her, checking below his feet, "we're about to hit a tree."

Anna obliged, and Danny did the same, and the two of them floated down through the branches of a large yellow pine tree. "Follow me," Danny told her, and he gently pulled her forward. He led her out of the tree, and they landed in a clearing next to their picnic basket. "Can you open your eyes?" Danny asked her gently.

"No," Anna muttered. She changed back to her human form. "Is there moving water nearby? I can hear it."

"Right in front of us," Danny replied.

"Can you put me right in front of it?"

Danny led Anna over to an open spot. Anna pulled her wrists out of Danny's hands and knelt down at the edge of the water. She felt around with her fingers until she found the edge of the water, and then tested its depth. It was quite deep. She dunked her head into it, face first, then came up, gasping from the cold water. " _Jeeeeeeeeeee-sus_," she gasped. She cupped her hands in the water and splashed her face, rinsing out her eyes, and ran a hand back through her now-wet hair to push it out of her face. Then she finally took a look at her surroundings. "Oh my God, _Abhainn na Ró_," she whispered.

She and Danny were in a clearing surrounded by thin leafy trees whose branches rustled slightly in a breeze they couldn't feel. The fast-moving river that Anna was kneeling beside was filled with large rocks smoothed by floods and occasional patches of white water. Bright green grass grew right up to the riverbank. Anna pulled her shotgun off her shoulder and set it on the ground next to her.

"Uh…what?" Danny asked, confused.

"A…river from home," Anna told him, standing up from the riverbank. She bent over and trailed her fingers in the flowing water. "Sorry, it…it just reminds me of a place I used to go. A long time ago." Anna, still standing at the edge of the bank, slowly removed her shoes. Then she rocketed into the river, fully clothed except for the shoes and socks she left on the riverbank. "_whoooooo-hooooooo!_" she screamed joyfully, frolicking around in the water. She flopped over backwards, baptizing herself in the water, and then shot out of the water in her ghost form, turning loop-di-loops in the air. Danny started laughing delightedly, even though he wasn't doing anything bet standing on the riverbank, laughing. "_Yeeeeeeeeeah!_" she hollered, and dove back into the river. She resurfaced, in human form again, and shook her hair out of her eyes. She clambered out of the water, laughing breathlessly. "Thank you, Danny," she said to him, flopping over on her back.

"You're welcome," Danny replied. "But what for?"

"Bringing me here," Anna answered, panting slightly. "It was something I needed." She sat upright and stared at the river. "It's been a long time."

"What was that…thing you said before?" Danny asked. "I couldn't understand it."

"Oh," Anna said, starting a little bit. "I forgot. _Abhainn na Ró_ means the River Roe."

"That's a river in Ireland?"

"Near Derry," Anna replied, "County Derry. I used to go there, almost every day during the summer." She picked up a pebble from the shore and skimmed it across the water. "That was a long time ago." They were silent for a while, Anna sitting on the riverbank with her knees doubled up to her chest, and Danny standing in his ghost form behind her. Anna reached out and trailed one toe in the river. "It's like glass," she murmured.

"Not anymore," Danny replied, biting the corner of his lip.

"What?"

Danny leapt into the air, flying forward and grabbing Anna under the arms, and flying her over the river. He got halfway across and dropped her in the river. As she resurfaced, she was shaking her head and spitting out water. "Oy!" she shouted up at Danny, and she changed into her ghost form. "Come back here!" She took off after Danny.

She and Danny playfully tussled for a while, floating just above the river's surface. Eventually, she and Danny both lost focus on staying aloft and tumbled the few feet into the river. Danny came up first, shooting a fountain of water out of his mouth. "Anna!" he called. "Anna, you okay?"

"I'm fine." Anna was crawling onto the riverbank, panting. "I'm fine." She collapsed on her back, smiling up at the sun. "You really need to work on your fighting. You're not very good at hand-to-hand combat."

"And you are?" Danny spat at her. He wasn't happy with a stranger criticizing his fighting technique, especially when he had used it successfully quite a few times.

"I'm good at everything. The Guys in White saw to that." Anna sat upright, draping her arms across her bent knees. "I'm not saying you're bad at fighting, Danny. It's just when you get in close." She turned intangible and the water flowed off of her. "Being able to fight from a distance is good. It makes your opponent's aim harder and you're less likely to get hit. But you get cornered every once in a while, and you have to fight at close corners."

Danny climbed out of the river and sat down next to Anna. "Close combat is dirty, and ugly, and fast," Anna continued. "You're a nice guy, it's not going to come easily to you." The corner of her mouth twitched. "I wasn't trained to be so nice."

"So who'll teach me?" Danny snapped.

Anna punched his arm. "Me, obviously. Sam might be able to help a little bit, but she probably doesn't have military-level training."

"Actually, you'd have to ask Sam," Danny commented, thinking back the President's Physical Fitness Test. "Knowing her, it wouldn't be that surprising."

"Well," Anna replied, standing up, "in the meantime, you'll start with me. Stand up." Danny obeyed, standing up facing Anna. "Put your hands on my shoulders and try to push," Anna directed. Danny did as she directed, sticking his arms out and trying to push Anna over. She wouldn't budge. He braced himself and tried again. Nothing. "Exactly," Anna nodded. She moved over so that she and Danny were only a few inches apart. "Now try again." Danny put his hands on her shoulders, skeptical, and pushed. Anna took a few stumbling steps backward. "Exactly!" Anna cried. "The key in a fight is to get in close."

She moved back up until she was a few inches away from Danny. "Now," she ordered, "put your hands on my shoulders, like you're trying to push," Danny complied. "Now," Anna directed, "before I strike, I'm going to pull you in tight, like this." She put one arm across Danny's outstretched arms at the elbows. She pushed down, which forced Danny to lean in closer. "Now, I've got you close," Anna pointed out, "so I can strike you easily, and more effectively, like _this_." Anna wound up and slowly brought her fist towards Danny's jaw. Danny turned his face to accommodate the punch.

"Okay, let me try." Danny took his hands off Anna's shoulders. "Can I try?"

"Sure." Anna took a step back. She suddenly reached out and grabbed Danny's shoulders. Danny pulled her in with the same push oh her elbows that Anna had used, and moved to punch Anna's jaw. Anna pushed both of them down and forwards, vaulting herself over Danny and doing a somersault.

"Hey!" Danny shouted, pushing himself upright, "No fair!"

"Second rule of close combat," Anna added, crouching and putting both fists up, "nothing is unfair. Come and get me."

Danny ran towards Anna, face crumpled into a scowl. Anna bolted towards Danny, bent over low. She lauched herself forward, and flew straight into Danny's thighs. "Aim right here," she commented, flying forward with Danny draped over her shoulder, "it hits them right at the center of gravity." She dropped Danny in the river.

"Okay," Danny muttered, emerging from the water and shaking his head to get the water out, "I'm beginning to not appreciate the lessons."

"You wanna just have lunch?"

"Sounds good to me."


	8. Chapter 8

Anna knelt on the edge of the riverbed and washed her hands and face in the cold river water. She turned intangible to let the water run off her, then put her hands together as if in prayer.

Danny froze as he was unpacking their lunch. He didn't know what to do. He wasn't a religious guy. Then he heard Anna singing quietly.

"_O-oh-oh-oh fro-ah-deh-eh-eh-ens vi-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ir-ga…" _Anna sang breathily. "_In tu-oo-a-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah nobilita-ah-ah-ah-ah-te-eh sta-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ans…" _She sang for a few more minutes, more words Danny didn't recognize. Then she crossed herself, stood up, and moved over to where Danny had spread lunch on a rock.

Danny and Anna ate their sandwiches in slightly sulky silence. As Danny chewed on a mixture of roast beef and the potato chips he had poured on his sandwich, he remembered Jazz's whispered instructions to him that morning when he told her they were going on a picnic.

Jazz had dragged Danny into her room by the elbow and shut the door behind her. "Just try to get her to _talk_," Jazz hissed between clenched teeth. "About something, _anything._ Just something from her _past_. Nothing to do with her training or being held by the Guys in White. Anything from before that."

"So…when did you used to go to that river in Ireland?" Danny asked awkwardly.

"The River Roe?" Anna replied absently. "I used to make trips there all the time. During the summer, I'd go with my parents. Day trips. Lots of fishing with my dad, canoeing, swimming in the river. I went to a girl's school, and we'd go on field trips there, with the nuns. The nuns would have us sing our prayers before we ate lunch."

"Is that what you were singing before?" Danny asked. He was genuinely curious. The Fentons sometimes attended church on Christmas and Easter. Sometimes. When Maddy and Jack remembered.

"Yes. A setting of a chant by Hildegard." Anna took a bite of her sandwich. "Old habits die hard, I guess."

"What did it mean?" Danny asked, tilting his head to one side.

Anna put her sandwich down in her lap and put a hand over her closed eyes. She chewed her lip. "_O leafy branch,_" she said slowly, "_standing in your nobility as the dawn breaks forth: now rejoice and be glad, and deign to set us frail ones free from evil habits._" One of Anna's hands clenched on the gravel riverbed. "_And stretch forth your hand to lift us up._" She opened her eyes and picked up her sandwich again. "Or something like that. It's been a long time." She looked down at the ground. "The sisters always thought it was appropriate."

Danny tossed Anna a bottle of water. "Do you miss Ireland?" he asked her.

"Let's not talk about Ireland anymore, Danny, okay?" Anna snapped.

"Sorry," Danny muttered.

"It's okay." Anna finished her sandwich and put the empty sandwich baggie in the picnic basket. "I did have a lot of love in my life, Danny, a lot of happiness, before my parents died, and even while I was living in the orphanage, before I was taken." She paused. "I miss that now."

"It was really that bleak? All those years with the Guys in White?" Danny asked. It sent a shiver up his spine, to think of spending years in that state of hopelessness, and loneliness. No Mom, Dad, Jazz, no Tucker. No Sam. He rubbed the back of his neck.

"Most of the time," Anna confirmed. She was pulling at one of her fingers, and Danny suddenly noticed that she had a ring on. He tilted his head to one side, staring at it.

Anna noticed him staring and folded her hands in her lap so he couldn't see her fingers. "Most of the time," she repeated firmly, scowling at Danny.

"Where did the ring come from?" Danny asked her, genuinely curious. "You weren't wearing that when you got here. I just noticed it."

"It's a token, of sorts. From a friend. I kept it in my backpack because I didn't want to lose it." Anna was rubbing her hands together anxiously, but she continued to glare at Danny. Danny thought of the class ring that he had meant to give to Valerie, and knew that rings always meant something.

"Did Jazz put you up to this?" Anna snapped.

"Yes," Danny said instantly, not knowing enough to lie.

But Anna didn't seem mad. She just reached for the picnic basket to get another sandwich.

As she opened the lid, a large dark blue streak flew out of the basket. "Ha-ha!" came a clowny shout as the streak flew into the air.

"Ah, crud," Danny muttered, changing into his ghost form.

"I am the Box Ghost!" The Box Ghost shouted, waving his hands in the air. Then, "Ah!" The Box Ghost was pinned to the tree by a long green spike that went through the shoulder of his shirt. Danny looked over at Anna. She was crouched on the ground, in her ghost form, with her smoking shotgun wedged into her shoulder, breathing heavily. The Box Ghost struggled for a minute, then wiggled his fingers and shouted, "Beware!" Then again, "Ah!" as another long green spike fired from Anna's shotgun and pinned his hat to the tree.

"Anna!" Danny barked. "Easy! Don't kill him!" Danny ran over in front of Anna and forced the barrel of her shotgun down. "Come on, take it easy!"

Anna glared at Danny. "Git!" she spat at the Box Ghost. She lunged towards him, claws extended.

"Anna!" Danny roared. He grabbed the front of her blouse, holding her in place.

Anna glowered at Danny for another second, then dropped the shotgun on the ground.

"Good girl," Danny growled through gritted teeth. He dug the Fenton Thermos out of the picnic basket and sucked the Box Ghost inside. As he stashed the thermos back in the basket, he turned to Anna. "What was that about?" he snapped, and then softened.

Anna was sitting on the ground with her legs doubled up, arms wrapped around them, face pressed into her knees. "Sorry, Danny," she mumbled. "That happens sometimes."

**Author's Note: To hear "O Frondens Virga" as Anna might have sung it with the nuns and the other students at the school, ****look on YouTube.**


	9. Chapter 9

Anna stood in front of the steps at Casper High, holding her books tightly to her chest, staring anxiously up at the big sign over the door. She was chewing her lip so hard Danny thought she was going to break the skin. He came up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder, over her backpack strap. "You sure you want to do this?" he asked her.

"Well, I can't really back out now, can I?" Anna mumbled. "I wish I had my shotgun."

"Anna," Danny said warningly. "You know you can't do that anymore."

"I know," Anna grumbled. "But four months with that thing? It's almost like a friend. I feel better with it."

"Then you need better friends," Tucker commented. He and Sam arrived next to Danny. "Try technology."

"Come on," Sam murmured, giving Anna's elbow a little push. "You know you gotta do this."

Anna took a little stumble forward, then started mounting the steps towards the school. Mr. Lancer and Principal Ishyama were standing at the top of the steps waiting for her. Principal Ishyama was smiling warmly. "Welcome to Casper High School, Miss Morrigan," she said, holding out her hand for Anna to shake.

Anna smiled broadly, and shook Principal Ishyama's hand. "Thank ye for letting me come to your school, ma'am," she beamed, her accent even stronger than usual.

"We're glad to have you with us, Miss Morrigan," Mr. Lancer said. He handed Anna a folded piece of paper. "Your locker assignment; and your schedule is the same as Miss Mansen's. She'll show you to all your classes."

"Thank ya, Mr. Lancer." Anna took the slip of paper and tucked it into her algebra textbook.

"I hope you are very happy here, Miss Morrigan," Principal Ishyama warbled, folding her hands in front of her officially.

"I already am, ma'am," Anna murmured. "I already am."

Sam led Anna into the foyer of Casper High. Anna took the slip of paper with her locker number on it and read it carefully. "Locker 724?" she asked Sam.

Sam, Tucker and Danny all cast anxious glances at each other. "Let's get you a new locker," Sam said quickly, pushing Anna back towards Lancer.

"No way," Anna said, digging in her heels. "I ain't talking to grown-ups any more than I have to. What's wrong with my locker?"

Danny rubbed the back of his neck.

"Danny," Anna growled. "Honestly, you should have learned by now that I can take care of myself. What's wrong with my locker?"

Sam bit her thumbnail. "It…used to be haunted."

Anna blinked at them. "And that's supposed to be a problem?" Her eyes lit up a bright, fluorescent green.

"Anna," Danny growled through gritted teeth. "Keep it under control."

Anna's eyes went dark. "Who used to haunt my locker?"

Tucker pulled out his PDA and started scrolling through files. "You heard of Sidney Pointdexter?" He found Pointdexter's file on his PDA and held it up so Anna could see the picture.

Anna's face lit up. "Oh, I know Pointdexter! He was a sweetheart. One of the few ghosts the Guys in White didn't make me attack."

"You…ran into Pointdexter?" Danny asked, genuinely surprised.

"Danny," Anna said, rolling her eyes, "you've seen my file. By the time I escaped, I'd run into almost everybody. Can we go to my damn locker now?"

"I'll take you," Sam said, taking Anna's hand, "it's right next to our first class."

Sam led Anna up the stairs of Casper High to locker 724. Anna inspected the piece of paper Lancer had given her, and opened her locker. The rusty door squeaked open as Anna yanked the door wide open. There was a noticeable spot on the wall where Pointdexter's old mirror had hung before Danny had smashed it. Anna touched the spot. "What happened here?" she asked, running her fingers along the wall.

"That used to be Pointdexter's portal into the real world," Sam answered flatly. "There was a mirror there, until Danny smashed it."

"He still come around, sometimes?"

"Nah," Sam answered, leaning back against the bank of lockers. "We haven't seen him since the Ghost King attacked."

"What classes do we have coming up?" Anna asked, heaving her backpack off her shoulders.

"Algebra," Sam muttered, ticking her classes off on her fingers, "art, chemistry, European history. Take the algebra book with you, but that should be all you need for a while."

"Why don't you like me?" Anna asked suddenly.

"What?" Sam gasped, startled.

"You heard me," Anna mumbled, embarrassed. "You ain't been nearly as welcoming to me as Danny has. Why?"

Sam shrugged. "You just…rub me the wrong way, I guess. I like you, it's just…" Sam paused and bit back what she was about to say.

"Just _what,_ Sam?"

"You scare me," Sam finished defiantly.

Anna's eyebrows went up. "I scare a goth gal. You might want to work on your reputation a little bit."

"It's not that," Sam muttered.

"Then what, Sam?"

"I'm scared of all the trouble you might bring down on Danny!" Sam snapped. "And you don't exactly have a comfortable level of self-control!"

Anna put one hand on her hip. "You think I'm going to snap and shoot an ecto-ray and blow _Danny's_ cover? Gee, darlin', thanks for your concern for me. Never mind that if I get caught, I'm gonna be taken back to Ireland and _tortured_, if not _killed_! That _Danny Phantom_ should get to live his private little life!"

"Anna…" Sam started.

"Go to hell," Anna snapped. She slammed her locker door shut. "You don't think I have a _comfortable_ level of self-control to keep my cover? I been on the run on my own for two months before I got to you. Every day and night surrounded by strangers –in the midst of the little mess that Danny created by accidentally revealing who he was on live television! With half the country on the lookout for anything ghostly during the biggest manhunt of the year, I managed to slip under the radar. And _I'm_ the most wanted ghost in the world. Don't put any airs on for Danny. I'm a highly trained ghost weapon. Millions of dollars and thousands of hours of work went into my creation. They want me back, even more than they want to catch Danny. So don't tell me I can't keep a lid on it, _Sam_. You ain't my mother. I been doing without one for a while." Anna stomped past Sam into the classroom next to the bank of lockers. In a moment, Sam heard the ripple of Anna's clear, accented voice, as she confirmed with the teacher that she was in the right classroom.

"What happened?" Tucker arrived next to Sam.

Sam puffed out a frustrated sigh and slumped back against the locker bank. "I just got spanked," she muttered.

Later that night, Danny knocked on Anna's bedroom door. "Anna, open the door."

"Bugger off, Danny," Anna grunted from inside. "I ain't gonna apologize to Sam. She deserved it."

"I'm not going to make you apologize to Sam," Danny called. "You're a big girl. You can pick your fights if you want to."

There was a _THUMP_, then more smaller thuds as Anna stopped to the door and yanked it open. She was wearing a black wifebeater and was sweating and panting. "Then what do you want?"

"What happened?" Danny asked. "Sam didn't tell me, and she didn't tell Tucker."

"You just know that I fought with her," Anna added, the corner of her mouth twitching. "And what business is it of yours?

"I just don't want my friends fighting with each other," Danny said, holding up his hands, "that's all."

Anna glared at him for a minute, then stalked back into her room. She had bolted a pipe to the wall of her room. She leapt up, wrapped her hands around it, and started doing chin-ups. Danny followed her into the room. "What happened, Anna?" he asked her, sitting on the bed.

"Nothing…important." Anna grunted between chin-ups.

"Anna, _what happened?_"

Anna let out a long groan as she slowly lowered herself from a rep, then pulled herself back up again with a grunt. "I never really thought Sam liked me, so I asked her why she didn't."

The light started to dawn on Danny. "What did she say?"

"She…said it was because…" Anna grunted, "she was worried…that I would…blow your cover."

"Oh dear…" Danny murmured, starting to see where this was going.

"I told her…that I thought…she was being…selfish…aaagh!" Anna swung her legs inward, pushed herself off the wall, and launched herself out into the room, landing with a _thump_ on both feet. She grabbed a towel and dabbed her forehead and neck. "I also reminded her that I've been takin' care of myself for quite a while, and the huge risk I'm takin' by going out in the open at all, and how much the Guys in White want _you_ is _nothing_ compared to how much they want _me._" She poured water onto the towel and slapped it over the back of her neck. She held up a hand to silence Danny. "And don't you try to tell me I'm wrong, Danny. They want me to get you, sure. But they've got bigger plans than you. They want to turn me loose on the Ghost Zone, and they are not gonna tolerate survivors. And they trained me very well to _leave…no…survivors_."

She snatched the towel off of her neck and threw it at the wall. "I had enough warfare, Danny. I don't want to fight anymore. But if someone tries to tell me, after everything I've been through, that I am being _selfish_…" She ran her hands back through her hair. "I don't wanna fight anymore, Danny. Please, don't make me." She turned away from him and faced the wall, lacing her fingers behind her head. She was staring at a map of Ireland that she had taped to the wall. "I thought I was done fighting," she murmured. Then she suddenly snapped, "Please, leave me alone."

Danny rushed out of the room. As he slammed the door behind him, he heard Anna face back up to the chin-up bar and resume her exercises.

Jazz was waiting for him in his room. She stood up from his desk chair as he entered. He shook his head at her. "Don't go in there," he said softly.

The next day, when Danny and Jazz went to get Anna from her room before school, she wasn't there. She had left a terse note on the bed telling them she had already left for school and to not worry about it. "Do you believe her?" Jazz asked Danny.

Danny crumpled the note in his fist. "Nope," he muttered.

When Jazz pulled up to Casper High, Danny jumped out of the front seat before she even turned off the ignition. He raced up the stairs to Anna's locker. He found her, hanging up a mirror in her locker where Pointdexter's mirror used to hang. "What's up, Danny?" she asked absently. "I told you not to worry." When she got the mirror secure, she bent forward slightly and started fixing her hair. "Hullo, Sidney," she told the mirror.

"Hiya, Miss Morrigan," piped Pointdexter's nasal voice from the mirror. Anna's reflection disappeared to be replaced by Pointdexter's skinny face and thick glasses.

"Anna!" Danny cried. He pushed Anna out of the way and slammed the locker door shut. "What did you bring Pointdexter back for?"

"Danny, keep your cool," Anna snapped. She pried Danny out of the way, and opened her locker door. "Pointdexter, you still there?"

"Yes, Miss Morrigan." Pointdexter's face materialized again.

"You know who I really am, Pointdexter?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And you know who's lookin' for me?"

"Yes ma'am."

"You gonna tell them?"

"No ma'am! I'll never sell you out to those _bullies!_" Pointdexter's face crumpled into a scowl.

"You gonna tell me if they start sniffin' around?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You gonna tell me if anyone in the Ghost Zone is lookin' for me?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Is anyone lookin' for me?"

"Just Walker ma'am. No one else wants anything to do with you."

"You gonna tell Walker?"

"No ma'am! He's just another bully!"

Anna smiled. "Thanks for your help, Pointdexter. Go back to class, darlin'."

"Yes'm. Don't worry, I got your back." Pointdexter's reflection vanished, replaced once more by Anna's pale face.

Anna pulled her head out of her locker and turned to Danny with a defiant little smile. "Helps to have friends everywhere, Danny." Danny's jaw was about on the floor. "Pick your jaw up, Danny." Anna pulled out a textbook and shut her locker door. "You look a little ridiculous."


	10. Chapter 10

Danny and Anna were training alone in the Fenton Lab. Even though Danny was sore about Anna's ability to beat him in a fight, he agreed to take fighting lessons from her, after a brutal beating from Dash a few days before. Anna and Danny had spread mats out on the floor to cushion any falls. They were squaring off so Anna could teach Danny a throw. "Come at me," she commanded.

Danny ran towards Anna in his ghost form. "Lean forward to grab me," she ordered, taking a few slow steps back as Danny approached. Danny leaned forward as he got closer to her, and then, when he was only a few feet away, Anna reached out, grabbed Danny by the elbows, and pitched herself onto her back. She swung a leg up and planted a foot in the middle of Danny's chest to keep him in the air as she let his momentum carry him over her. Danny grunted with pain as her foot made contact and he flew over her and towards a lab bench.

"Why can't _I _ever be the one to throw _you?_" Danny muttered as he phased through the lab bench.

"Well," Anna pointed out, "now you get to try it on me." She went over and stretched a hand out to Danny to help him up. As she pulled him to his feet, he lost his balance and snaked an arm around her waist to keep himself upright. He flailed around for a few more seconds, and Anna grabbed his shoulders. When he finally got himself steady, neither of them moved for a few moments.

"Danny?"

"You…" Danny bit something back. "Your hair's in your face." He pushed a lock of her lime-green ghost hair back behind her ear.

"Thanks." Anna grabbed Danny's wrist and pulled him back to the middle of the lab. "Now try the throw." She took a few steps back from Danny, and paused, wound for a fight. "Ready? One, two, three!" She ran at Danny, inclined forward as if to tackle him. Danny did as she had done, grabbing her elbows, and dropping backwards, pulling Anna over his head. He didn't fall backward quickly enough, though, and as Anna passed over him her boot caught him in the jaw. "Oof!" he grunted.

"Yeah," Anna said nonchalantly, soaring over Danny and turning a somersault so that she landed in a crouch. "You've really got to fall on your back and let your opponent just go over you. If you need to get him up higher, prop him up with your foot. Let's try again."

The next day, the gang was sitting in the school courtyard, eating lunch and enjoying one of the last few nice days before the weather got too cold. Anna was coldly looking over Sam's shoulder while Sam sketched in a notebook, while Danny and Tucker were eagerly swapping newly released cheat codes for Rainforest Demolition.

"Hey, Fen-Toenail!"

Danny clenched his fist on the lunch table. His eyes flashed.

Dash came up behind Danny and smacked him across the back of the head. Kwan was close behind. "I didn't know that you were such a loser you had to look _outside_ the _country_ for friends!"

Danny pounded his fist on the table, and his eyes lit up green. He started to stand up, until Anna leaned forward across the table and grabbed Danny's forearm, pressing it to the table to keep him in place. "Danny," she snapped, "keep a lid on it."

"Let him fight, you little fenian," Dash taunted her, getting in Danny's face.

Anna froze, still holding Danny to the table. "What…the hell…did you just call me?" She and Dash glared at each other. "Baxter…" she growled. "You're English, aren't ya? You learned that from your parents."

"Told my Dad you were here," Dash replied. "He told me all about _your_ people. Terrorists!" he barked in her face. "People like you killed his grandparents! Never thought you'd shy away from a good fight!"

"A Room of One's Own! What is going on here?" Mr. Lancer appeared out of nowhere, arms folded.

"Baxter was makin' racist comments against me, Mr. Lancer," Anna growled. "Called me a fenian, and smacked Danny around for no reason."

"And why, may I ask, are you holding Mr. Fenton down?"

"He wanted to defend my honor, Mr. Lancer. I didn't want him to get in trouble."

"I see." Mr. Lancer turned to Dash. "Mr. Baxter, while your being a star football player lets you get away with much, I cannot allow you to make such comments to Miss Morrigan. Please come with me." He grabbed Dash by the back of his collar and dragged him away from the lunch table.

Anna kept Danny pinned to the table until Mr. Lancer and Dash were safely out of sight. Then she let go and sat back. She picked up a pencil and started doodling in the corner of Sam's sketchbook. She looked as calm as if nothing had happened, but she was pressing the pencil so hard into the paper the tip broke off.

"What did you stop me for?" Danny shouted at her. "I could have taken him! I could have thrown him against the wall! Oof!" He bent over and grunted as Anna kicked him hard in the shin.

Anna was glaring at him. "Keep…your…cool…" she growled through clenched teeth.

"Why did you teach me how to fight if you won't let me?"

"Danny," Anna muttered, stabbing her fork into her Caesar salad, "count to ten."

Danny let out an angry puff of air, then sullenly counted to ten under his breath. And then counted to ten again.

"Danny," Anna said, "you shouldn't need military-grade training from me to know to pick your fights!" She pointed in the direction Dash and Mr. Lancer had gone. "You…would…lose…that…fight. Probably at a bigger cost than you'd think. So please, don't tell me about it." Anna picked up her tray and her backpack and walked off.

That night, Jazz knocked on Anna's bedroom door.

"Go away, Jazz," Anna called from inside. There was a series of soft _thumps_. "I'm not in the mood for a therapy session tonight."

"What did Dash call you, today?" Jazz called through the door. "I don't think Danny got it right, but from what his said, you got pretty mad."

The thumping inside stopped. Anna opened the door. She was unwinding bandages from around her hands. Hanging from a hook in the ceiling that used to be used for plants was a brown leather punching bag. "Where did you get that from?" Jazz asked.

"Amity Gym," Anna grunted nonchalantly. "They were going to get rid of it, so I nicked it outta their bins and fixed it up a bit."

"What did Dash call you at lunch today?" Jazz pestered.

Anna sighed and turned away. "Called me a fenian. Go away, Jazz." Anna slammed the door behind her.

Jazz went back down the hall to her bedroom, where this time Danny was waiting. As soon as she entered he pounced on her. "What did she say?"

"Nothing. But she did repeat what Dash called her." Jazz sat down at her laptop and opened up the internet. After several misspellings, she finally managed to find the term in an online dictionary. As she read through the word and its etymology, her brow furrowed. "Danny," she said suddenly, spinning around in her swivel chair, "where did Anna say that river was? The river she talked about when you went on that picnic?"

"Gee, I don't remember," Danny protested, "Jazz, it was ages ago."

Jazz ran down the hall and banged on Anna's door.

Anna ripped open the door. "What?" she roared.

"River Roe," Jazz interrogated her, "where is it?"

"Jazz, what the hell-"

"Just, where is it?" Jazz barked.

"County Derry. Jazz-"

Jazz slammed the door shut and ran back down the hall to Danny. "Something's not right," she said to him . "I haven't figured it out yet, but I will. There's something not right about Anna's story."

"How do you know?" Danny asked, thoroughly confused.

"I just…know, Danny. Go away, I have to do some research."

"Let me save you the trouble." Danny and Jazz both jumped and turned. Anna was propped up against Jazz's bedroom door frame. She looked exhausted, but was staring straight at Jazz. "You're thinking what I think you're thinking, right?"

"You're not from Dublin," Jazz said softly.

"No, no I'm not. Not really. The orphanage was in Dublin. But I wasn't born in Dublin."

"You're from Derry."

"Yeah."

"Were you…"

"Yeah." Anna nodded slowly. "My parents were."

Danny looked back and forth between the two of them, thoroughly confused. "Jazz, what's going on?"

"Danny, go away," Jazz said softly. When he didn't move, she barked, "Now!" Danny scowled and darted out of the room. Anna came inside and shut the door. "How did your parents die?" Jazz asked her quietly.

"There was a raid," Anna murmured, almost too quiet for Jazz to hear. "My parents shut me in a broom cupboard and told me they'd come back for me when everything was alright. I never saw them again. Not until the funerals." She slid down on the floor next to Jazz's bed. "The British Army was looking for the remnants of an old 'RA splinter group."

"How did you end up in Dublin?" Jazz asked, taking a seat at her desk.

"Friends of my parents. They got me south after my parents died. They knew my parents wouldn't want me to be another Catholic orphan in a northern orphanage, surrounded by unionist kids." She looked up at Jazz. "There you go. Now you have every detail of my nasty, violent past. You happy now?"

"Anna, were they…"

"They got out before I was born." Anna ran her thumb along her lower lip. "Were there people around us still workin'? Yeah. And did my parents do them favors? Probably. Beyond that, it's none of your business, so I'd prefer if you wouldn't ask."

"Can I tell Danny? And his friends? _Should_ I tell them?" Jazz leaned forward. "Anna, is there anything that's going to come back to bite us?"

"No," Anna growled. "The last person I saw from my parents' past was that Galway crab who helped me get out. And you're not going to tell Danny and the others. If anyone's going to tell them, it's going to be me. But I'm not going to. Like I said, it's none of their business."

"Anna, your parents…"

"My parents are dead!" Anna snapped. "What does it matter? What does any of it matter now? My parents have nothing to do with what happened to me, and they have nothing to do with my being here now. I'm not gonna apologize for not telling you, so don't you sit there expecting it." Anna jumped to her feet and marched quietly out of Jazz's room. A few minutes later, Jazz heard the renewed sound of Anna's blows landing on her stolen punching bag.


	11. A Letter to the Readers

** Nope, sorry guys, this isn't an update. But it is the best way I know of to get in touch with all of my readers at once, so I present this very long author's note. **

** I just wanted to thank your guys for taking the time to read my little piece of brain crack. "The Ghosts of Ireland" has honestly grown far beyond what I ever envisioned. I never thought people would actually read this, let alone review it, let alone follow it. It makes it so much more fun for me that other people enjoy this too.**

** "The Ghosts of Ireland" gives me a chance to combine one of my great loves and hobbies – Irish politics – with honestly one of the best cartoons Nickelodeon ever produced, "Danny Phantom." **

** When I first came up with the idea for Anna Reilly and her adventures with Danny, I didn't even have a clear plotline, and you might have noticed that I still don't. But I still enjoy writing these little vignettes, creating a rather colorful character in the process, and giving some color to Danny and his friends as well. I hope to keep writing them for quite a while. I don't see Anna's adventures ending yet.**

** I do honestly want to hear your opinions about my writing and my characters (my portrayals of other peoples' characters and my own original character) (soon to be multiple original characters – but no spoilers!) Leave reviews often. I do read them all and keep all of them in mind while I write. I know I'm not a perfect writer so I'll always listen to feedback when it's given. I do write mostly for me, but I write for you guys who enjoy this too, so I want to hear your opinions.**

** Hopefully coming soon, we will have some more insights into Anna's past, but we will be getting into some ghost fights as well. I regret that I can't hold myself to any kind of a schedule for this, but I will try to post the best updates I can write as soon as I can.**

** Alright, if you'll excuse me, I have to go write Chapter Eleven. **

**Erin Go Bragh,**

** Rosalita of Ireland.**


	12. Chapter 12

"Child! You cannot defeat me!"

"Danny, let me help you!" Anna shouted, making another dive for the window.

"Anna, you can't do that!" Danny shouted back, grabbing Anna's wrists.

Outside, a mix of wired devices was whizzing by the window. Technus' manic laughter could be heard coming through Anna's open window.

"Anna, if you jump outside and start firing ecto-blasts, the Guys in White are going to be all over Amity Park and then we're both done," Danny snapped. He pointed out the window, still holding Anna's arm. "I have to go and take care of this, now, but I can't leave until you promise that you're going to stay. Put." He gave Anna a little shake. "Anna?"

"Fine," Anna snapped, wrenching her wrists out of Danny's hands. She stomped over to her bed and sat down, folding her arms across her chest and looking sulky.

"Thank you," Danny said brusquely, then dove out the window. "Technus!" he shouted.

As soon as he was gone, Anna ran over to the window and looked out. Danny and Technus were squaring off, and Technus had his back turned to Anna. Anna ran back to the bed, changing into her ghost form, and knelt down. She groped around under her bed for a moment, then ran back to the window, clutching her shotgun. She crouched by the windowsill, forming an ecto-bullet between her fingers, and loaded it into the gun. She jammed the weapon into her shoulder and aimed it at Technus. "Both eyes open," she whispered to herself, and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet sped at Technus and struck him in the shoulder. "Aaaagh!" he roared, turning in the direction the shot had come from. Anna hit the deck, lying flat on the floor so Technus couldn't see her, covering her head, her gun on the floor next to her.

"Hey, Technus?" Danny fired a blast at Technus that struck his other shoulder. Then, he pulled the Fenton Thermos off of his belt and sucked Technus inside.

Danny was fuming. He darted back through the window of Anna's room to yell at her, but when he got inside, the room was empty. He crossed his eyes to look down at his mouth, but his ghost sense wasn't going off. So Anna wasn't in the room.

Danny turned invisible and started flying through the house, looking for Anna. He finally got down to the Fenton Lab, where the doors to the Ghost Portal were just sliding closed. "Anna," Danny moaned. He entered his key code for the Fenton Portal and flew in.

After about an hour of looking, he found Anna. She was with Pointdexter, doing target practice outside of Pointdexter's school.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Danny snapped.

"Language," Anna told him nonchalantly. Then, "Pull," she snapped to Pointdexter. Pointdexter tossed an apple into the air and Anna fired at it. She missed.

"You're slipping," Danny commented, because he knew it would piss Anna off.

"I'm not slipping. I'm just pissed," Anna growled.

"You shouldn't have taken that shot," Danny roared.

"You're welcome for that shot, by the way," Anna retorted.

"Anna!"

Anna raised her eyebrows. "Danny. I didn't get caught. So what's your problem?"

"You shouldn't have taken the shot!" Danny barked again.

"Danny, I'm a big girl. You took me in, you fed me, gave me clothes, and gave me a bed to sleep in at night. Your sister taught me geometry so I could go to school. The least you can let me do in return is help you fight ghosts!"

"No, the least you can do for me is make my job of protecting you easier!"

"What, by never going out at all and never calling any attention to myself at all?"

"If that's what it takes! I promised you that I would keep you safe in the Guys in White."

"So then what was I doing for the two months that I was on the run?"

"Do you want me to go away, Miss Morrigan?" Pointdexter whispered.

"Oh, go then." Anna growled, waving a hand. Pointdexter darted away and vanished into the mist.

"Anna, I was doing fine fighting ghosts before you came along! I don't need your help, what I need is for you to not go ghost in public, and also, stay out of the Ghost Zone!"

"Danny, no one's coming after me in the Ghost Zone. Not even Walker's trying that hard! He doesn't want to deal with me when he finds me. For one, he doesn't know that I have any humanity in me. He think he's found a ghost like Wulf."

"Maybe you are as bad as Wulf!" Danny barked. "Just blindly flail and attack everything in your path! Anything that makes you mad! You're nothing but a monster! The only reason they want you back is to keep you from hurting anyone else!"

Anna slapped Danny across the face so hard his neck cricked. They glared at each other for a few moments, breathing heavily. Danny opened his mouth to speak again, only to have Anna slap him again. "You don't even know what monsters are," Anna snapped. She turned and flew off at top speed, leaving Danny rubbing the back of his neck and staring after her, too stunned to follow.

That night, Danny, Sam, and Tucker were all in Danny's room. Danny was pacing back and forth across the room anxiously. There was a soft knock on the door. Sam ran to the door and opened it. Jazz was standing there, looking tired. "Any sign of her?" Danny asked.

Jazz shook her head. "I told Mom and Dad that she was having a late-night study session with Lancer."

"I have to go look for her," Danny said, marching for the door. He stopped and turned back to the others. "She's run off before, but she's always come back to FentonWorks."

"We're coming with you," Sam said. "You don't know what trouble she might have gotten herself into. Jazz can stay here and keep an eye out for her."

Jazz nodded. "Danny, she's right. Let them come with you."

"Fine," Danny said, changing into his ghost form. But we have to go _now_, before she's gone any longer."

"You're sure she's still in the Ghost Zone?" Tucker asked.

"Positive."

Danny, Sam, and Tucker were racing through the Ghost Zone in the Specter Speeder, with Tucker at the wheel. Sam was squeezing Danny's cold ghost hand, trying to keep him calm. He had been driving until he had nearly crashed the Specter Speeder, after which Tucker had taken over.

Sam had turned on the scanned that searched the Ghost Zone for real world items. "Come on, Anna," Danny muttered, staring desperately at the scanned as if that would make it pick up on Anna. "Come on, Anna, show some common sense for once in your life…"

"_Real world item detected._"

"That's enough to go on," Tucker said, and he turned the Specter Speeder in the direction the scanned indicated.

"_Warning: Approaching Danger Zone._"

"Tucker, where are we?" Sam asked.

Tucker pushed a button on the console. "Walker's prison," he groaned.

"Oh, we're definitely in the right place," Danny muttered. "Sam, suit up."

Tucker pulled up next to the wall of the prison and opened the door. Danny reached out one hand and turned the wall invisible.

Anna was chained to the wall in Walker's office. Danny bit his lips to keep back the curses. A stream of blood trickled from Anna's temple. She must have turned back into her human form when she was struck. Her head lolled forward, the blood mixed with tears. Her hair was sweaty and stuck to her neck and shoulders.

"Oh my God," Tucker whispered.

"I didn't think Walker could _do_ this," Sam whispered.

"_He_ couldn't," Danny muttered. He pointed.

Vlad Plasmius was standing next to Walker, arms folded, watching Anna. "Again," he ordered one of Walker's goons.

The guard slowly, hesitantly, as if he really didn't want to, moved towards Anna. In one hand, he held an evil-looking black rod. He smacked Anna with it. It seemed to shock Anna with something like electricity, and she screamed, and changed back to her ghost form. The blood on her face turned a glowing, sick-looking green.

"Mother of God," Danny whispered.


	13. Chapter 13

"Interesting," Vlad Plasmius mused, stroking his chin thoughtfully with a finger. "And she seems to be completely stable."

Danny released the wall and it turned opaque. He sat back, shaking. "We have to get her back," he said determinedly.

"Well, that's obvious," Sam said, pushing a button on the Fenton Peeler. She stood still as the weapon unfolded around her. "But how?"

"I'll take Vlad," Danny decided. "You two get past Walker and his goons and get Anna. I'll be out right behind you as soon as you've got her."

"Danny," Sam said softly.

Danny turned to look at Tucker and Sam.

"Danny," Sam said, "if you go in there, Vlad's going to know where to find Anna. He'll know she's with you."

"Well the alternative is to leave her here," Danny snapped, "and who knows what Vlad will do! We have to get her out."

Sam put a hand on Danny's arm. "We'll get her out, Danny. But she's a tough one. I think she'll be okay."

"We'll make sure she's okay," Tucker added.

Danny nodded. "You two go first," he said, turning intangible. "I'll come behind you and take care of Vlad."

"On it, Danny," Tucker said. Danny phased out through the bottom of the Specter Speeder.

Tucker slammed on the pedals and drove the Specter Speeder through the walls of Walker's prison.

"What the…" roared Walker. He turned to his guards. "Stop them!"

"Taaaaaaaake _that!_" Tucker shouted, and he pressed a button on the console. Ecto-blasters emerged from hidden panels in the Specter Speeder and began firing at the guards. Tucker controlled the biggest of them with a joystick. Sam leaned out the open bay door and began to run towards Anna, firing at Walker.

Vlad began to fly towards Sam, but found himself tackled by a fast-moving black object. Danny pulled Vlad away from the brawl, and turned them both intangible, phasing them through the wall of the prison. "So how did your business deal go,_ Vlad_?" Danny barked.

"Very well, Daniel, thank you," Vlad replied, smirking.

Inside the prison, Anna was hanging limply from her chains. Sam was tugging at her wrists, trying to pull her free. She took a blind shot over her shoulder and sent a goon flying back into the prison wall, stripping off his armor as he soared. "Anna," she muttered between clenched teeth, giving Anna's shoulder a little shake, "come on, Anna…"

Outside Danny was shooting wild ecto-blasts at Vlad, none of which were really even close. "Ah-ah," Vlad rebluked Danny tauntingly, easily ducking each misfired shot. "Anger management, Daniel."

"I don't have time to banter with you today, Plasmius," Danny roared, and he flew straight at Vlad, both fists extended. "Do you have _any_ idea what you've done?"

"Sam, come on," Tucker shouted, "we have to go!"

"I can't get these off!" Sam replied, giving Anna's arm an insistent, vicious pull. "Tucker, get me Mrs. Fenton's utility weapon!"

"What?" Tucker bellowed. "But you _hate_ makeup unless it's black!"

"It's the only thing small enough to get these off without hurting Anna!" Sam shouted back. "Just _find_ it!"

"I do know _exactly_ what I've done, Daniel," Vlad smirked, throwing up an ecto-shield that repelled Danny back into the wall of Walker's prison. "I've finally found the perfect half-ghost, half-human child. You think I didn't _know_ that the Guys in White had succeeded in creating Miss Reilly?"

"They didn't _create_ her," Danny growled, reorienting himself. "She's a _human being!_" Anna's line from before echoed in his head; _You don't even know what monsters are._

Inside the prison, Sam carefully positioned the utility weapon over Anna's wrist. "Tucker, cover me!" she shouted. "Danny," she shouted into the Fenton Phones, "we've almost got Anna! Get ready to run!"

Vlad darted up to the prison wall, hands outstretched for Danny's neck. Danny saw Vlad coming towards him, and suddenly, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. He saw Vlad coming towards him, and he reached out and seized Vlad's elbows, just as Anna had shown him. He pushed and pulled, tossing Vlad back over his head and towards the wall of Walker's prison. He cheered himself inside his head as he fell back and Vlad flew cleanly over him and collided with the prison wall.

Sam had blasted one of the wrist chains off, cutting Anna a little bit, but as she positioned the lipstick again, she noticed Anna starting to stir. "Anna!" she cried out joyfully.

"Six o'clock!" Tucker shouted. Sam fired the Fenton Peeler back over her shoulder and managed to clip Walker in the leg enough to slow him down.

Anna was breathing deeply and quickly, but hadn't opened her eyes yet. "Anna?" Sam asked, getting ready to take the shot.

Suddenly, Anna sat bolt upright and her eyes flew wide open. It was the same terrified, hollow look that she had had when Danny had tried to touch the scars from the mind-control probe. "Oh my gosh," she whispered. She suddenly realized what was coming. "Tucker, batten down!" she shrieked. "Danny," she screamed over the Fenton Phones, "grab onto something and cover your ears! Now! Just do it!"

Sam dove back through the open bay door of the Specter Speeder. "You're _leaving_ her?" Tucker cried.

"In about two minutes, it's not going to be the problem!" Sam snapped back. She hooked her arm through the door handle and covered her ears. "Just hold on to whatever you can!"

Danny looked at Vlad, trying to push himself upright from the rubble of the prison wall. "Sam, what's going on?" he shouted into the Fenton Phones.

"Danny," Sam shouted, "just cover your ears and hold on to something!"

Anna let loose the most spine-chilling scream anyone had ever heard. Tucker curled up in a ball on the floor of the Specter Speeder, holding his knees to his chest. The parking brake seemed to be keeping the ship in place against Anna's powerful ghostly wail.

Danny shot through a hole in the wall and grabbed onto the tail of the Specter Speeder, clinging on for dear life. Though most of his brain was screaming _Oh my God I'm going to die_ a small part of him was thinking, _So this is what the ghostly wail feels like._

Walker and his goons flew past Danny, clutching the sides of their heads. Vlad was somewhere in their midst, but Danny wasn't sure of that. But he knew Vlad would be back.

Finally, Anna's scream stopped. Danny fell to the floor of Walker's office. He looked up to see Anna once more hanging limply from her chains. He crawled over to where Anna was bound, and picked up his Mom's utility weapon from where Sam had dropped it on the floor. He carefully pointed it at the cuff on Anna's wrist and fired. The cuff fell off. He repeated the process on each of her ankles. "Sam," he said hoarsely into the Fenton Phones, "open the bay doors." Anna was still in her ghost form in the aftermath of her ghostly wail, but the blood on her face and shirt had turned the dark red of human blood. He scooped Anna up in his arms, letting her head fall into the crook of his neck. He carried her into the Specter Speeder. "Tucker," he whispered.

Tucker still hadn't uncurled himself from his ball on the floor. Sam went over and gently shook him. "Tucker," she murmured, "Tucker, are you okay?"

"That s-s-scream," Tucker muttered, and he turned away from Sam.

Sam pulled him away from control panel. "I'll drive," she said shortly. She pushed a button on the Fenton Peeler and her suit retracted. She sat down at the control panels. "You stay back there and keep an eye on Anna. Is she conscious yet?"

"No," Danny said, laying Anna down on a bench in the back of the Specter Speeder. "I don't think she was conscious of that ghostly wail. Let's just get her home and try to patch her up before my parents start asking questions."

Sam pressed a bright green button on the console, a homing button that Tucker had programmed to take the Specter Speeder home on auto-pilot. She stayed up front to keep an eye on the controls.

Danny pulled up a seat next to Anna, and pushed a lock of her glowing green hair out of her face. It was sticky with her blood. Danny bit his lips and rubbed the back of his neck. "I am so sorry," he whispered to Anna, "I promised you I was gonna keep you safe." He looked out a window at the fog of the Ghost Zone speeding by. "I guess I didn't do a very good job."


	14. Chapter 14

They had managed to sneak Anna upstairs and into her bedroom without waking Danny's parents. Though their ruse had almost been ruined when Jazz had walked into the room and screamed at the sight of Anna's bloodied face in Danny's arms. "Danny, what happened?" she shrieked.

"Sssssshush!" Danny hissed, waving his arms. "You'll wake up Mom and Dad!"

"Danny, what happened?" Jazz whisper-screamed.

"Better," Danny snapped under his breath. "Walker and his goons got Anna." He put up his hand to stop Jazz. "It gets worse. Vlad was with them. He knows about Anna. And now he's going to be after her too."

Jazz swore, which sent Danny's eyebrows up so high on his forehead that they disappeared into his shaggy white hair. "Where are Tucker and Sam?"

"They're downstairs parking the Specter Speeder."

Jazz pulled back the covers on Anna's bed. "Go get a wet washcloth," she whispered urgently. "Put Anna in bed and go get some wet washcloths. Cold ones. And some gauze from the medicine cabinet. We have to get her patched up before Mom and Dad wake up."

Danny gently put Anna down on the bed. He ran out of the room to get what Jazz needed, changing back into his human form as he ran.

Jazz cupped Anna's chin in her hand staring intently at Anna's face. She was still staring when Danny came back with the washcloths and gauze and a bowl of ice water. "What's wrong?" Danny asked.

"I need her to be back in her human form," Jazz muttered. "I don't know how to patch up a ghost."

Danny slowly put down the bowl, the washcloths, and the gauze on Anna's nightstand. He was thinking carefully. "Do you _really_ need her to be in her ghost form?" he asked slowly.

"I think so," Jazz replied.

Danny slowly sighed, and changed back into his ghost form. "I hate to do this," he said softly, forming a small cloud of ecto-energy around his hand. "Sit her up, and cover her mouth."

Jazz looked at Danny in dismay. "Are you sure?"

"I think so."

Jazz carefully pulled on Anna's shoulders until she was sitting upright. Jazz kept her at arm's length, but carefully placed one hand over Anna's mouth. Danny raised a hand, swallowed hard, and smacked Anna across the back of the neck, right over the scars from the mind-control probe. Anna's eyes shot open and her body stiffened, as if she had been shocked with electricity, but she didn't scream, just silently changed back into her human form. Jazz noticed idly that the blond roots of her hair were beginning to show and that her hair needed to be recolored.

Anna slumped in Jazz's arms and her eyes drooped closed again. "Okay," Jazz said carefully, letting Anna slowly fall back against the pillows. "You, leave for a minute. I'll take care of this."

"Jazz…"

"Danny, just do it, okay?"

"I can help!"

"I'm about to take all her clothes off!" Jazz snapped quietly. "So beat it, little brother."

Danny opened his mouth, closed it again, and left.

Jazz quickly stripped Anna and threw her bloodied clothes into a basket in the corner. She checked Anna's body for bruises or other injuries as quickly as possible, sponged her down with the washcloth. She dug underwear out of a drawer and grabbed the nearest outfit at hand, Anna's black wifebeater and a pair of military-green men's cargo pants that she wore to work out. When she finished tugging Anna's new outfit on, she covered Anna with the blankets and propped her up slightly with pillows. She went to the door and opened it, and sure enough, Danny, Tucker, and Sam were all waiting outside. "You can all come in now," Jazz said. She turned around and went back inside. Danny sat down on the window seat, and Jazz pulled up a chair next to the bed. She began to gingerly wash Anna's face.

"Go home and get some sleep guys," Danny said suddenly, turning to Tucker and Sam, who were still hovering in the doorway. "Thanks for your help. But get some sleep. We'll take care of Anna."

"You sure?" Sam asked.

"Yeah."

Tucker and Sam looked at each other. "I'll give you a lift home," Tucker said, and he and Sam left FentonWorks as quietly as they could.

"You should get some sleep too, little brother," Jazz said, rinsing out the washcloth.

"I'm fine," Danny grunted. He turned to sit sideways on the window seat.

"No, you're not," Jazz said. She pulled Anna's hair back out of her face. "You fought Technus today. You fought Vlad, you fought Walker, you fought Anna. You need some sleep." She picked up the washcloth again and dabbed at Anna's face, breaking the congealed blood on a cut over her eye. "Dammit," she hissed, and grabbed a piece of gauze. "Go get some sleep, Danny. It's two in the morning. You'll be awake in a few hours anyway."

"I'll help you take care of Anna."

"No, you won't. This is a one-person job." Jazz pressed the gauze to the broken cut. "Go get some sleep, Danny. You know you won't be able to sleep for long anyway." She turned to look at Danny, but smiled as she discovered that he had nodded off where he had curled up in the window seat. She turned back to nursing Anna.

The next morning Danny woke up to find Jazz still sitting by Anna's bedside. Anna now had gauze taped to her face and neck in several places, and a cold washcloth under her neck. Now the bruising on her face was more apparent. Jazz's head tipped down and then back up in exhaustion. She had an ecto-blaster in her lap.

Danny stood up and touched Jazz on the shoulder. She jumped. "Has she woken up yet? At all?" Danny asked her.

Jazz shook her head.

Danny's shoulders sagged. He picked up the ecto-blaster out of Jazz's lap. "I'll watch her for a while. You sleep."

Jazz didn't protest. She pushed herself up out of her chair. "Put a new cold cloth under her neck every once in a while," she said absently, and she stumbled off to her room.

Danny sat down in the folding chair and placed a hand on Anna's forehead. "Come on, Anna," he whispered. "Please wake up…"

Two days later, Danny was still sitting by Anna's bedside. Anna still hadn't moved, and neither had Danny.

Jazz came into the room and put a hand on Danny's shoulder. She had dark circles under her eyes. "Hey, little brother."

"Jazz." Danny sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Jazz, I'm really getting scared."

"I know, Danny. I am too."

"What do you think is wrong?" Danny moaned.

"I don't know, Danny," Jazz murmured, squeezing Danny's shoulder. "I really don't know." She moved past Danny and checked the bandages on Anna's face. The bruises on her face had started to turn yellow and green at the edges, turning her black eye highly decorative. She changed the bandage on the cut over Anna's eye.

"We need help," Danny murmured.

"From who?" Jazz snapped. "We can't tell Mom and Dad."

"We can try the Ghost-"

"Shhhh!" Jazz cut him off quickly, waving her hands. "Danny, shush! You hear something?" They both fell silent.

_Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling…_

Someone was singing, backed by a single, hollow flute. The notes echoed through the open window, in a clear, high soprano voice, that Danny and Jazz didn't recognize.

_…From glen to glen, and down the mountainside…_

Anna stirred for the first time in two-and-a-half days. "Oh my gosh," Danny whispered and grabbed Anna's hand. "Come on, Anna," he pleaded, "come on, please…"

_…the summer's gone, and all the roses falling…_

Anna whimpered and turned her head.

_…It's you, it's you must go, and I must bide…_

Anna sat bolt upright and screamed, her eyes flying open. It wasn't a ghostly wail, but it was still a very good scream. Danny grabbed her and hugged her awkwardly from the side, wrapping his arms as tightly around her shoulders as he could. The music stopped.

As soon as Anna processed Danny's hug, the scream stopped, and she grabbed Danny's arm, returning the awkward sideways hug. She was taking deep, shuddering breaths. Jazz sighed in relief and collapsed in the window seat.

Anna's eyes were squeezed shut. "Danny, what happened?" she whispered. "Oh, Danny." She let go of him and turned in his arms so she could hug him properly. "Danny, I'm so sorry…"

Danny pushed Anna back, and ran his hands through her hair. He kissed her on the forehead and both cheeks. "It's okay," he whispered, cupping her face in his hands. "Everything's okay. I'm just…so glad you're okay."

Anna buried her face in the crook of Danny's neck. "Danny," she murmured, tears choking her voice, "what happened?"

"Walker got you," Danny whispered. "We got you back."

"Thank you for that," Anna whispered back. Jazz had helpfully disappeared, probably to go and get some decent sleep.

Danny cradled Anna's head against his shoulder. "How are you feeling?" he asked her softly.

"Scared," Anna muttered.

"I meant…" Danny stopped himself. Anna wasn't going to complain about physical pain. She wasn't one to complain about emotional pain either, so she must really by scared. He pushed Anna back and held her at arm's length, gently touching each bandage and bruise. "Are you…are…" His fingers came to rest on the corner of Anna's multi-colored black eye. "Are…" He couldn't finish the sentence and simply nestled Anna's head back into the crook of his neck.

"Danny, what's wrong?" Anna asked, her voice muffled by Danny's chest.

"Nothing, nothing," Danny answered absently.


	15. Chapter 15

Danny landed, in his ghost form, on the steps outside of Vlad's country house. "Vlad!" he roared.

Vlad opened the door. He was wearing a red and white silk housecoat and had his hair elegantly slicked back. "Why Daniel," he purred elegantly, "how lovely to see you."

"Let me in, Vlad," Danny growled, a cloud of ecto-energy forming around his clenched fist.

"Temper, child," Vlad rebuked him teasingly. "Do come in."

Danny stomped into the foyer of the mansion. "I want a truce," he barked at Vlad, "for one hour. I want to talk."

Vlad pulled his chin and stared at Danny for a moment, sizing him up. He put a hand around Danny's shoulder and led him into the library. "Very well, Daniel," he agreed. "One hour. Oh, and how is your dear friend, the little Irish halfa?"

Danny swallowed down his anger, changed back into his human form, and sat down in an armchair. "She's what I want to talk about. She's off-limits, Vlad."

"She's a big girl, Daniel," Vlad said nonchalantly, taking a seat opposite Danny. "She can take care of herself."

"Hasn't she been through enough?"

"That really shouldn't factor into anything, Daniel," Vlad responded, shrugging. "For some people, life is hard. Life is always hard, for some people."

"Then let this factor in," Danny growled. He leaned forward in his chair. "You know who made her."

"Ah, yes," Vlad sneered, "The intrepid Guys in White."

"So I guess you know all the effort they put into giving her her powers," Danny continued.

"Yes," Vlad said, waving a hand. "I really am amazed they managed to do it."

"Then you should know that they want her back. Bad."

"Badly, Daniel," Vlad corrected Danny absently.

"Whatever," Danny snapped. "But if word gets around that she's out here – like if she starts flying around trying to escape from something, or _someone_…" he added pointedly, "the Guys in White are going to be all over the Midwest, looking for her and anyone who might know where she is."

Vlad shrugged. "I don't see how that affects _me,_ Daniel."

"I think it does. Because they're going to be all over anything and anyone who gives off even a _hint_ of ecto-energy. Such as…a secret lab in a basement?"

Vlad stiffened, but his facial expression didn't change. "And why aren't you concerned about _your_ family, Daniel?"

"Everyone knows about the Fenton obsession with ghosts," Danny said, waving his hand. "The Guys in White will poke around, but not too closely. They don't like the Fentons, and they don't care." He leaned forward. "So here's my proposal: you can come after me, all you want, and I will keep fighting you as best I can. But Bridget Morrigan, a.k.a. Anna Reilly, a.k.a. my little Irish halfa friend, is off-limits. And that way we'll save both our skins."

Vlad settled back in his chair for a second and thought. "And sacrifice my best chance of obtaining my own halfa child?"

"You'd have better luck trying to clone me," Danny scoffed. "You know how the Guys in White kept her under control? With a mind-control device that plugged into her neck so far it touched her spinal cord. You think she likes me any better? Not much. She doesn't listen to a word I say, and she does what she wants. You won't be getting a willing halfa child by kidnapping Anna. It'll all be more hassle than it's worth for you."

Vlad pulled at his chin, staring intently at Danny. "This doesn't affect our relationship," Danny continued. "You can come after me all you want. But you have to leave Anna alone." Danny clenched his fists. "She's been through enough, Vlad. Just leave her alone."

Vlad sat for a while, staring at Danny. Finally he sighed. "Very well, Daniel," he said. "I'll leave Miss Reilly alone, as you asked."

Danny stood up and stretched his hand out to Vlad. "Deal?" he asked.

"Deal, Daniel," Vlad agreed, and shook Danny's hand.

Danny turned on his heel and marched out of Vlad's mansion, slamming the great doors behind him.

As soon as the doors were closed, Anna, in her ghost form, materialized next to him. "You shoulda let me shoot him," she grumbled, her grip so tight on the barrel of her shotgun that her knuckles were white.

"Anna," Danny warned her, changing back into his ghost form. "Don't push your luck."

Anna let out a puff of angry air that sent a tuft of hair flying off of her forehead. She still had her black eye and the deep cut on her forehead.

"Thank you," Danny said, "but you're lucky he didn't hear you cock your gun."

"You heard that?"

"You, me, the mountain goats, and anything else alive in the countryside. You're just lucky that he was talking at the time, and when Vlad talks, he doesn't hear anything else."

"Let's just go home," Anna said.

"I agree," Danny said, glad to avoid the fight. Anna was still trying to keep it together in the aftermath of her capture. But he had noticed she was quieter. More restrained. She kept her head down at school and tried to slip through under the radar. She hadn't spoken with Pointdexter since her capture and return. Jazz had tried to get her to talk about what happened, but Anna had quietly refused. The scariest part was that it was quietly. She didn't snap, didn't shout, didn't slap Jazz. She just softly said no and closed the door. Closing the door wasn't followed by the sound of angry blows landing on Anna's punching bag, or her grunts as she faced her pull up bar. Danny wasn't oblivious. Something was wrong.

As Danny and Anna flew home, a few flakes of the first December snow drifted through the air and landed in Anna's cloud of hair. "You cold?" Danny asked her absently.

"Ghosts don't get cold," Anna replied quietly.


	16. Chapter 16

Danny was sitting at his desk doing homework, while snow was falling outside. It was December 20th. He heard laughter outside and turned to look out the window.

Anna and Jazz were walking home from school. Danny leaned on the windowsill and looked down at them. Anna's normally pale skin was tinged pink from the cold. She wore a black trenchcoat, and a thick blue scarf, and her hair streamed from the band of a dark grey tam in loose, thick waves. Her hair seemed to glow a dull, fiery red, after she and Jazz had re-colored it to hide Anna's blonde roots.

Anna suddenly turned and looked up at Danny's window, her laughing smile still on her face. Danny jerked himself away from the window, turning warm with embarrassment. He went back to his math homework.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at Danny's door, and Anna entered without waiting for a response. She silently sat down on Danny's bed, pulling off her hat and gloves, and pulling her math homework out of her bag. "Your sister's seeing somebody," she commented absently.

"Where is he?" Danny asked, imitating his father, "I'll send that shmuck packing in five minutes."

"Don't," Anna rebuked him, tossing her snow-damp coat over the end of Danny's bed. She had undergone a makeover in the weeks since her capture. She still wore the jeans she had arrived at FentonWorks in, but paired them with a soft white v-neck t-shirt, a pale gray cardigan, and a thin gold chain with a cross on it. Her face was accented with a kiss of dark pink lipstick that hadn't gone unnoticed by Danny – or many other guys at Casper, either.

She became softer, more demure. The jagged edges of her well-trained ghost half had been smoothed away by something that neither Danny and his friendship with Anna nor Jazz with her psychology skills could place.

"Leave your sister alone," Anna continued, "she really likes this guy. And he's not a ghost," she added, seeing Danny's look. "She told me all about Johnny Thirteen. I have ghost sense too, and this guy's fine."

"And do you really like anyone?" Danny asked, trying to slip in under the radar and failing.

"Yes," Anna said, scratching down the answer to an algebra problem.

Danny sat for a minute in shocked silence. "Who?" he finally managed to get out.

"No one you know," Anna told him.

The next day was the first day of winter vacation. Anna holed herself up in her room, in bare feet and a white t-shirt covered in hundreds of shades of paint. Danny stood in the doorway and knocked on the open door.

"Come in," Anna called over her shoulder.

Danny walked in, holding a hot mug in his hand. "Hot chocolate?" he asked Anna, proffering the mug.

"Thanks," Anna said, turning in her seat and taking the mug from Danny.

Danny was staring at the stretched piece of canvas that was sitting on a makeshift easel. "Where'd you get that?" he asked Anna.

"Art class," Anna said, sipping the hot chocolate. "The teacher let me take it home."

On the canvas were pencil lines and the beginning of a painted portrait of a young man. "Who is that?" Danny asked Anna.

"Someone important to me," Anna said, putting the mug down. She picked up a brush and continued gently painting the boy's face with long, smooth strokes.

"How did you know him?" Danny asked, sitting on Anna's bed.

"Danny, you should have figured out that I'm not going to talk to you about it," Anna said. She paused, sat back, critically eyed the painting, and started again, strengthening the boy's jawline with sharp strokes.

"Why not?" Danny asked.

"Because I won't."

"Did he give you that ring you wear all the time?" Danny asked. He picked it up from where it lay on Anna's nightstand. It was a silver band, engraved with intricate Celtic knots, and set with a shimmering turquoise stone.

"Put it down, please," Anna said, freezing on the spot.

"I'm just looking…"

"Danny, _put it down,_" Anna growled, turning to glare at him, and for a second Danny saw the old Anna peeking through. He instantly felt better and put the ring down. "Thank you," Anna said, turning back to the painting. The young man had his arms folded proudly across his chest, a slight smile playing around his lips. "Yeah," Anna continued, picking up a tiny brush and dipping it in a shade of emerald-green paint, "he gave me that ring."

"Why?" Danny asked.

"Something to remember him by," Anna said, and she began filling in the color for the boy's eyes.

"What was his name?" Danny asked. "The guy." He pointed.

Anna paused, the brush still poised in her hand. "James," she said, finally. "Jimmy Donahue."

On Christmas morning, Danny threw open Anna's door and ran into her room, jumping up onto the bed. "Get up!" he shouted joyfully, bouncing up and down on the mattress, "Get up! Get up! Merry Christmas!"

"Happy Christmas to you too, Danny," Anna mumbled, pulling her blanket over her head. "Now bugger off."

"Come on," Danny said, crawling up the bed and pulling the blanket back down off her head. "Come on, Anna, it's Christmas Day! Get up!"

"I respectfully refuse," Anna grunted, "and I politely ask you to go away."

"We're about to open presents."

"I'm up." Anna sat straight up in bed.

"Excellent," Danny said, and without thinking about it, he leaned forward and gave Anna a peck on the lips.

Anna acted as if nothing had happened. She put on the ring from Jimmy Donahue and clambered out of bed and went straight to the closet. She dragged out several thin rectangular packages wrapped in newspaper. "Anna," Danny said, a thought occurring to him, "where did you get presents?"

"Well, I could tell you, but that would involve telling you what your present is," Anna replied smartly. She stashed the packages under her arm and took off down the stairs.

Danny buried his face in the pillow and yelled in frustration.

When Danny finally joined his family downstairs, they were all seated in the living room waiting for him. Maddy and Jack were sitting on a love seat, Jack still in his striped pajamas over his hazmat suit. Anna was curled up in the seat of an armchair, hugging her knees to her chest. Jazz was sitting on the floor next to the tree.

The Fentons all swapped gifts, and gave gifts to Anna. Jack and Maddy gave her a new pair of high-heeled shoes, Jazz gave her an artist's sketchbook, and Danny? Danny gave her a faux-leather wallet. As Anna smiled and turned it over in her hands, Danny nudged her with his elbow. "Open it," he told her.

She did. A photo strip fell out, already full of photos. Photos of the River Roe, photos of Dublin Castle, photos of Anna with Danny and his friends, browsing the goth bookstore with Sam, playing basketball with Danny and Tucker, on a field trip to an art museum with Mr. Lancer and her art class.

Anna covered her open mouth with the back of her hand. "Danny," she said softly.

"Merry Christmas, Bridget," Danny said.

Anna scrabbled across the carpeted floor and wrapped Danny in a bone-crushing hug. "Thank you, Danny," she whispered in his ear.

Danny easily returned Anna's hug. "You're welcome," he whispered back.

"We're glad you had a lovely Christmas with us, Bridget," Maddy said, snuggling closer to Jack.

"But we're not done, yet," Anna said, looking around. She scrambled back to the armchair, and pulled her newspaper-wrapped packages out from under the chair. "I haven't given all of ya your presents from me yet."

"Oh, darling, you didn't have to do that!" Maddy protested.

"I wanted to, Missus Fenton," Anna replied, and she handed one package to Maddy and Jack, one to Jazz, and one to Danny. "Happy Christmas."

"Oh, Bridget!" Maddy cried, pulling the newspaper off of her present.

"Oh, wow," Jazz said.

Danny just stared at her.

Anna had painted beautiful oil portraits of each member of the Fenton family. Jack and Maddy were posed together in the FentonWorks Lab, looking fondly on the glowing green results of one of their experiments. Jazz was posed as if she were in an 18th century portrait, seated in an armchair in a large, dark library, wearing a slinky black evening gown and reading a book. Her eyes looked coyly up from the book at the viewer.

And Danny?

Danny was standing posed by a roaring fireplace, wearing a tuxedo and holding a glass of champagne. He was smiling warmly, and offering his hand to the viewer of the painting, as if inviting them to step inside the painting and join him.

"Wow," Danny said. "You painted these?"

"Yeah," Anna said shyly, looking down at her hands folded in her lap.

"When did you…"

"The art teacher thought I was pretty good," Anna said bashfully. "He kinda…took me under his wing."

"Oh thank you, Bridget!" Maddy said, carefully inspecting the painting, "I'm going to hang it up right in the Fenton Lab where I'll see it!" She jumped up and ran down the stairs, Jack trailing dutifully behind her.

"I'm going to put mine right above my desk," Jazz said, and she hurried off to her room.

"Where are you gonna put yours?" Anna asked Danny.

"I don't know yet," Danny said. He looked up at Anna. "I don't know yet."

"Here," Anna said, a slow grin playing on her lips. "Look at this." She formed a small cloud of glowing green ecto-energy around her hand. She held it up to the painting, so it was lit by the glowing green light. It slowly shifted, to be a picture of Danny in his ghost form, standing at the entrance of the Fenton Portal, his hand stretched out as if to lead the viewer into the ghostly abyss.

"Whoa!" Danny cried out. "How'd you do that?"

"A magician never reveals her secrets," Anna said teasingly, and she let the light around her hand go out. The portrait returned to normal.

"You're amazing!" Danny said, cupping Anna's cheek in his hand. He froze, looking at Anna's smiling, grateful face. He started to lean in.

"Danny, no," Anna said firmly. She put a hand in the middle of his chest to stop him. "Don't." She pushed him gently back. "I'm gonna go get dressed." She stood up and straightened her pajama top, preparing to leave.

"Damn," Danny muttered to himself, just loud enough for Anna to hear, "it was going to be perfect. Had the Christmas tree in the background and everything."

Anna turned back to Danny. "Sorry I ruined your perfect little plan," she said scathingly. She turned and marched upstairs.

When Jazz came back down, she stared at Danny anxiously. "Where's Anna?" When Danny didn't say anything, she asked, "Danny, what did you do?"

"Jazz," Danny said, ignoring Jazz's question, "I've got a project for you."

"Danny, what happened?"

"I need you to find out who Jimmy Donahue is."

"Who's Jimmy Donahue?"

"That's exactly what I want to find out."


	17. Chapter 17

_"Jimmy?" Anna whispered. Jimmy didn't move. "Jimmy!" Anna scrabbled across the floor of the lab, ignoring the cuts on her hands from the scattered broken glass. "Jimmy, come on!" Anna grabbed Jimmy's shoulder and turned him over. She pulled him into her lap. "Please, Jimmy," she whispered, cradling his head in her arms. She ignored the blood dripping down her neck._

_ Jimmy's eyes fluttered. Anna sighed. "Oh thank God," she whispered, pulling Jimmy closer._

_ "Don't…get your hopes up…" Jimmy whispered._

_ "I ain't gettin' my hopes up," Anna said, looking down at Jimmy's face. "You're gonna be fine."_

_ "I'm not," Jimmy mumbled._

_ "Yes, you are," Anna said. She glanced at Jimmy's stomach, where the blood was spreading. "I'm gonna get you a bandage, okay? You're gonna be fine…" Her voice was rapidly climbing the octaves._

_ "Anna, don't go!" Jimmy wheezed, and he convulsed._

_ "Okay!" Anna cried, settling back and pulling Jimmy closer. "Okay, I won't go! I'm right here!"_

"Anna?"

Anna started upright in bed with a gasp. Danny was sitting on the edge of her bed. She instantly calmed and fell back against her pillow. "You have great timing," she muttered.

"You were talking pretty loudly in your sleep," Danny said. "Are you okay?"

"I am now." Anna turned her back to Danny, and her cheek landed in a damp spot on her pillow. "I'll be fine, Danny," she said, squeezing her eyes shut, "Go back to sleep."

"Anna…" Danny said, "These night terrors…they've been getting worse, ever since we got you back from Walker and Vlad. They've been happening more and more."

"Danny," Anna said, exasperated, "just…go back to sleep. Please."

Danny sat on the edge of Anna's bed for a few moments, then got up and left, shutting the door behind him. Anna opened her eyes and waited until she heard Danny get back into bed and settle into sleep. She reached out a hand into the empty part of the bed next to her, ran her fingers over the cold sheet. She drifted back to sleep again.

_"Okay!" Anna cried, settling back and pulling Jimmy closer. "Okay, I won't go! I'm right here!"_

_ Jimmy grabbed Anna' hand and squeezed it tightly. "I promised I was going to get you out of here…"_

_ "You did get me out of here," Anna whispered, pushing Jimmy's shaggy black hair back. "Yes, you did. Look, I'm out. You did it, just like you promised. We're going to be all right."_

_ "No, we're not," Jimmy grunted, and his face twisted up._

_ "Come on, Jimmy," Anna cried, pulling Jimmy closer. "Come on, we just have to get out of here!"_

_ Jimmy's fist clenched on the trashed floor of the lab. "You know…" he said through clenched teeth, "I've never heard your voice before…"_

Anna felt a cold arm come up around her shoulders, pulling her close. She snuggled closer. A ghost of a kiss brushed her ear.

The next morning, Anna woke up, turned over, and saw Jazz sitting in her desk chair, arms folded firmly across her chest. "Out of my chair," Anna grumbled, slapping her hands over her face and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"No, I don't think so," Jazz said, and her tone made it clear she wasn't going to tolerate any of Anna's witty nonsense.

"Jazz, what do you want?" Anna muttered, sitting upright in bed.

"How long have I been working with you, Anna?"

"Since I got here in July," Anna mumbled. She swung herself out of bed and padded over to the vanity, where she began to tug her hair out of its night braid.

"And you should know by now that if you want me to be able to help you, you need to tell me everything."

"Barring the stuff that I don't want to talk to you about because it's none of your business," Anna replied smartly.

"No, you tell me everything," Jazz snapped back. "Who's Jimmy Donahue?"

"OUT!" Anna roared.

"I heard you in here, last night!" Jazz shouted. "Talking, giggling, and…kissing! Half the night! With someone you kept calling Jimmy! And Danny's been sour ever since he heard about someone named Jimmy Donahue! Anyone with a brain and a pair of eyes can tell Danny likes you, so forgive me if I went ahead and made the connection!"

"Oh, go to hell!" Anna shouted, finally spinning around. "It's my life! I'm not Danny's whore! If that's what's expected of me for me to live here, then all of you can go to hell! I'll go back out on my own!"

"No one ever said…" Jazz protested.

"Oh, you sure implied it," Anna snarled, her lip curled. "I just heard you imply I'm not allowed to _like_ anyone. _Love_ anyone. Screw you. You don't know anything about me and Jimmy, so forgive me for telling you to go _shove. It._"

"You're sneaking people into our house!" Jazz shouted.

"Jimmy Donahue is _dead!_" Anna screamed.

The room was dead silent.

"What?" Jazz whispered hoarsely.

"Jimmy Donahue… has been dead…since May," Anna said, and her voice sounded strange. "Get out of my room."

Without even thinking about it, Jazz blankly stood up and walked out of Anna's room. As soon as the door was closed, Anna collapsed by the edge of her bed and tried not to cry.

Christmas break ended. The gang returned to school. Anna spoke to no one, smiled at no one. After school, when everyone else went home, she stayed in the art room, and worked on her painting of Jimmy.

The art teacher was a pretty young woman named Miss Santos, who was soon to become Mrs. Sullivan. She came up behind Anna and inspected the painting. "It looks lovely, Bridget," she said, placing a hand proudly on Anna's shoulder.

"Thank you, Miss Santos," Anna replied, adding another brushstroke of color to Jimmy's plaid work shirt.

"You have quite a talent, dear," Miss Santos said. "You've made a lot of progress since you started attending our school."

"I'm glad to be here, Miss Santos," Anna replied. She sat back for a second to study the painting.

"You're not the only one who's glad you're here, dear," Miss Santos said, giving Anna's shoulder a squeeze. "I'll be in my office if you need me."

"Thank you, ma'am," Anna replied, flashing a smile.

When Anna finally got home, it was getting dark. Danny was sitting on the front steps waiting for her. "You're trying to make me get old," Danny barked at her.

"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly welcome in Fenton Works right now," Anna snapped back.

"Well," Danny said, "it might be the safest place for you for a little while."

"What happened?"

"The Guys in White were here," Danny snapped. "Poking around."

Anna let out an exasperated puff of air. "We knew this was going to come, didn't we?"

"No," Danny said. "I didn't."

"Liar," Anna growled.


	18. Chapter 18

Fenton Works quietly went into lockdown. The kids all slept with ecto-blasters under their pillows, and Jack and Maddie pulled the kids from school for a while, citing family reasons. They set up an ecto-shield around Anna's room, and Anna never left her room, eating there, sleeping there, and keeping far away from the windows.

A week after the Guys in White came to question the Fentons, Danny went to visit Anna in her room. She was sitting bolt upright in a chair placed in the middle of the room, facing the door. Her hair was frizzy and lank around her shoulders, and her shotgun was pointed at the door. "You should knock," she muttered as Danny entered. The shotgun didn't move.

Danny approached Anna and forced the muzzle of her shotgun down. "It looks like the Guys in White have left town," Danny said. "We'll stay locked down for a few more days just to make sure, and to make it a little less suspicious." Danny put his hand in his back pocket and drew out a photograph. It was of Anna, pale and drawn, and blond. Very blond. She was almost unrecognizable. "They were showing these," he said, handing the photograph to Anna.

She glared at it for a second, then crumpled it in her fist and threw it into the trash.

"When was the last time you slept?" Danny asked her.

She didn't answer.

Danny walked back to his room and pulled a photo album out from under his bed. He opened it. It was filled with pictures of him, Sam, Tucker, and his family, but recently he had added a lot of photos of Anna. He reached into his back pocket, pulled out another copy of the photo that he had gotten from Tucker, and taped it into the album. It was next to a picture of Anna and Jazz from Christmastime. They had been shopping in a candy store. The backdrop behind them looked like a playland, with Anna and Jazz laughing, and Anna's hair, that day in thick, pretty curls, swirling around her face from the brim of her gray tam.

"Don't do this to yourself."

Danny didn't turn around to look at his sister. "Don't do what, Jazz?"

"Danny, she doesn't want you," Jazz whispered.

"It's not that, Jazz," Danny replied, shutting the photo album and shoving it back under the bed.

"Then what, Danny? Cause that's pretty much what it looks like."

"I promised her I'd protect her."

"Danny…" Jazz said quietly, putting a hand on Danny's shoulder, "What if you can't?"

That night, Danny suddenly woke up at nothing. He knew something was wrong. He put out a hand and touched the wall between his and Anna's rooms. The wall turned invisible. Anna's bed was empty.

Danny instantly changed into his ghost form, turned intangible, and shot down through three stories of FentonWorks, into the FentonLab. Anna was slowly typing in a key code to unlock the Fenton Portal. Her backpack was at her feet, and her shotgun was propped up against the wall next to the Portal.

"And where are _you_ going?" Danny asked.

Anna went about a foot in the air and brought the shotgun around to point at Danny at an inhuman speed. Then recognized Danny and relaxed.

Danny floated to the floor, his arms folded across his chest.

"Danny," Anna said, picking up her bag and slinging it over her shoulder, "I have to go. This one close call with the Guys in White was one too many. I can't put your family in danger for me."

"We _want _ to be in danger for you," Danny said, "we want to help you!"

"And I won't let you," Anna said calmly. "This isn't your fight, Danny. It's mine." She turned and keyed in the last few numbers. The Fenton Portal slid open, bathing Anna and Danny in the ecto-green glow so familiar to them and their kind.

"I promised you I'd protect you…" Danny whispered.

Anna smiled sadly. "I know." She turned and faced the Portal. "But this isn't just you and your family. This is…this is something I have to do. "

"I'll miss you," Danny blurted out. "We all will. Everybody at Casper, the Fentons…we'll all miss you."

Anna turned back. "I'll miss you too." She reached out a hand and rumpled Danny's hair. "Remember what I said about picking your fights," she reminded him.

She turned back to the Fenton Portal. She jumped up in the air, turned a somersault, and she was in her ghost form, hovering a few inches off the ground.

"Where will you go?" Danny suddenly asked her.

Anna picked up her shotgun. "Where do you think?"

"There's nowhere you can go where Walker can't find you," Danny pleaded.

"Sure," Anna replied, forming an ecto-bullet between her fingers. "But there's plenty of places that Walker can't go 'cause people won't let him. And I have friends in one of those places." Her voice softened. "A lot of friends. Far too many."

"Where?"

Anna loaded the bullet into her shotgun. "I'm going to find more of my kind," she said. She shot through the Portal and the heavy steel doors slammed shut behind her.

Anna was gone.

"ANNA!" Danny roared, pounding a fist on the Portal doors.

Silence.

Danny keyed in his own code for the Fenton Portal and opened the doors. He flew in. There was no sign of Anna. He hadn't been expecting any. But he needed to get somewhere where could rip out his ghostly screams where no one could hear him.

He had failed her.


	19. Chapter 19

Danny leaned his elbows out on the windowsill of his room. It had been three weeks since Anna had disappeared. He and Jazz had managed to cover her disappearance with their parents and with everyone else as Casper High.

Anna's room had been left untouched since she left. Danny had told his parents that he would take care of it, and he never had.

"You can't still be worried about her?" Sam said. Ostensibly, they were all there to study together for a test coming up. But only Sam and Tucker had really been studying. Danny hadn't been remotely focused.

"Aren't you?" Danny snapped.

"Danny, Anna's a big girl," Sam countered. "She can take care of herself. And she seemed to know where she was going and what she was doing. You have to trust her."

"Sam's right," Tucker added.

"I know I'm right," Sam confirmed.

"Well, I think you're wrong," Danny said. He suddenly stood up and walked through his wall into Anna's untouched room.

She had finished the portrait of Jimmy before she left. She hadn't taken it with her. She had left it hanging on the wall above her bed. The bed was neatly made. Most of the clothes the Fentons had bought for her were still hanging neatly in the closet. Danny glowered up at the portrait of Jimmy. He wanted to blast it, but he thought about how much effort Anna had put into it, and he left it alone.

Sam and Tucker, who didn't have the option of walking through walls, opened the bedroom door. They didn't come inside. "Danny," Tucker said slowly, "You're not gonna see her again. You have to let it go."

"I can't!" Danny spun around to face his friends. "I can't let it go! Don't you get it? I promised her that I was going to protect her! I let her wander off into the Ghost Zone once, and she ended up in Walker's clutches! I can't let her get hurt again! I promised her!"

Sam and Tucker were silent. Finally, Sam reached out and grabbed Danny's arm. She dragged him back into his room and shoved him into his desk chair. She picked up a roll of duct tape that Danny kept around to hang up posters, and taped Danny to the chair. She opened his chemistry textbook to the appropriate page and placed it in Danny's lap. She and Tucker sat back down on the floor and continued to study.

Three minutes later, the book landed on a floor with a thud. Sam and Tucker looked up, and Danny was gone. Tucker groaned.

They ran down to the Fenton Lab, where Danny was typing in his key code. "Danny, stop it!" Sam shouted. "You can't protect her now! She left! She's _gone!_"

"I don't care!" Danny shouted back, changing into his ghost form. He dove into the Ghost Zone.

Tucker put a hand on Sam's elbow, and steered her out of the Lab. "You have to let it go too," he whispered to Sam.

Sam said nothing.

Danny sped through the Ghost Zone, turning over and over in his mind his last conversation with Anna, trying to divine where she had gone. _"I'm going to find more of my kind,"_ she had said. More of her kind? But there weren't any other halfas.

She said it was something she had to do. What did she have to do?

And it occurred to Danny.

What had been plaguing Anna for so long.

He stopped and looked around him. He knew where she had gone, or rather who she had gone to find. He thought about his knowledge of the scope of the Ghost Zone. What was the most remote corner, the most hidden door, where no one would ever go, not even Walker, not even Vlad at his most reckless. He didn't know, but he would find it.

He found it.

A black lacquer door, twenty feet high.

When he first saw it from a distance, he noticed it was surrounded by armed guards, with street clothes from various time periods. The young man on the left was wearing clothes from the early 20th century, complete with a newsboy cap. On the right, was a young woman in a dress from the 1950s, which made the pistol in her hand look violently out of place. A man in an AC/DC t-shirt and jeans was patrolling back and forth in front of them. They all looked grim. Danny floated slowly towards the door.

All of a sudden, an unstoppable force came at him from the side and knocked him down. He barely got a glimpse of his attacker, a young man in shirtsleeves, dress pants, and thin suspenders. He felt the old metal of a gun barrel pressed to his temple, grabbed it, and began wrestling with it.

"Stop!" Danny shouted, "I'm a friend! Friend! I'm looking for Anna Reilly! I'm a friend!"

"Jesse!" barked a harsh Irish voice. "Let him go!"

"Mick…"

"Let him go!"

The gun stopped moving, and Jesse got up and took a few steps back.

A middle-aged man in an olive-green army uniform put out a gloved hand and helped Danny to his feet. "What's your name, lad?" he asked Danny.

"Danny," Danny said, "Danny Phantom."

An expression of great sadness crossed the soldier's face. "Poor boy…come with me."

He led Danny through the black lacquer door, which led into an enormous house where all of the occupants seemed to be sitting vigil. He led Danny up a set of stairs, and opened a door into an apartment.

Two men and two women were sitting at the kitchen table. One woman was holding the other, as she was crying.

"Mr. and Mrs. Reilly?" the soldier said, "This is Danny Phantom."

The crying woman looked up. Her face was white, and her eyes were scarlet.

"Thank you, Commander Collins," one of the men said.

Commander Collins clicked his heels together in a military fashion, and left them all alone in the apartment, closing the door behind him.

"Commander Collins is a good man," the other man said to Danny, looking distant. "I'm glad you got to meet him."

"I'm sorry if…I'm interrupting something," Danny said awkwardly.

"It's alright, Danny," the crying woman said, standing up. "Anna will be happy to see you." She led Danny down the hall of the apartment, to a plain white door. She turned to Danny. "Go ahead," she said, and she went back to the kitchen.

Danny hesitantly knocked on the door. He got a violent shock when it opened, revealing the face that had shone a lopsided smile out from Anna's painting for so long. Except now the face looked sad. "Who are you?" Jimmy growled at him, "What do you want?"

"Jimmy," came a faint but familiar voice from the inside of the room. "Let him in,"

"Anna…"

"Let him in."

Jimmy opened the door a little wider and let Danny in. Anna was lying on her back, in a small bed with a wrought iron frame, covered in a white sheet up to her chest. She was wearing a silky white nightgown with a scooped neckline and tiny puffed sleeves. She was in her human form, her hair still dark red, but she was pale, and sweating, and she looked like she was in pain. She swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Anna…" Danny moaned. "What happened to you?"

Anna smiled slightly. "Jimmy, give us a minute, okay?"

"Okay," Jimmy said softly. He knelt down next to Anna's bed and held her hand. "I'll be right outside, darling," he whispered, and kissed her forehead.

"Okay," Anna whispered back. Jimmy went outside and closed the door.

"Anna," Danny asked, taking a seat in the chair that had been pulled up next to the bed, "what happened to you?"

"I went and found more of my own kind," Anna said softly. She reached out to Danny with her left hand. Danny took it, and noticed that the silver and turquoise ring had been moved to her left ring finger, and was now paired with a thin, plain silver band. "Jimmy and I got married," Anna said, smiling fully for the first time since Danny had arrived, "last week."

"Congratulations," Danny said, squeezing Anna's clammy hand. "But how do you know him? Why is he here? You never said…"

"Jimmy…was a janitor at the lab…" Anna said, and she grunted and doubled up.

"Anna!" Danny cried.

"I'm okay..." Anna groaned, "I'm okay…" and she let out a slow breath and relaxed. Her grip on Danny's hand loosened. "Jimmy was a janitor at the lab in Dublin. He was…never alright with what they were doing to me.

"One night, after everyone had gone except for him…I had an attack. I was twelve, and I had one of my screaming fits. Jimmy was thirteen. The Guys in White had gotten him not long after they got me, and since they had a lab rat, they put him to work. Jimmy was in the lab cleaning, and I started screaming. He ran over to my case and started talking to me, trying to calm me down. He did.

"After that, every night, he would come and keep an eye on me in the lab. If I woke up, he would talk to me, give me some kind of human contact to keep me from having an attack. Sometimes he'd play music for me, on a little radio on his cart.

"When I had that attack on the day I escaped, Jimmy was the one who cut me loose and pulled the device out of my neck…and they shot him for it. The only agent who hadn't been completely knocked out by my screams…shot Jimmy in the stomach for helping me. Jimmy died in my arms."

"And you came and found him," Danny said.

"And my parents," Anna said. She let go of Danny's hand, and placed her own hand on the skin of her chest. Her face took on a look of peace. "I found them in this place. This is where all the ghosts of Ireland come." She turned her head on the pillow to look at Danny. "You met Mick Collins. All the men and women who died in the Irish conflict, and more besides…they all come here. Eamonn De Valera, Bobby Sands…they're all here. Where no one will ever dictate to us again." The corner of her mouth turned up. "You met my parents outside, and Jimmy's parents." She coughed slightly, and a trickle of green ecto-goo came out of the corner of her mouth. She tried to cover it up, but Danny still noticed.

"Anna, what's wrong?" Danny asked. "What's wrong with you?

Anna slowly closed her eyes. "The day after Jimmy and I got married…I started coughing up ecto-energy. Whatever the Guys in White did is collapsing."

"Anna," Danny moaned. "What can I do? How can I fix this? I will fix this."

"You can't," Anna sighed.

"I _can_," Danny said. "I promised you I was going to protect you."

"Danny," Anna sighed, and she smiled sadly, "you should never have made a promise that you knew you might not be able to keep. Aah!" She doubled up in pain and began panting.

"Anna!" Danny shouted.

Jimmy threw open the door and ran into the room. He knelt down next to Anna's bed and grabbed her left hand. Danny grabbed her other hand. "Anna," Jimmy whispered, peppering her sweaty face with kisses, "Anna, hold on, you're going to be okay…"

"Jimmy…"

"I'm here, darling! You're gonna be okay!"

"Jimmy…"

Jimmy cupped Anna's face in his hand. "I'm right here, Anna,"

"Anna, come on!" Danny moaned.

Anna was crying. "Jimmy…thank you…I love you so much…"

"I love you too," Jimmy's voice was tight. "I love you so much. I'm gonna take care of you. We're gonna be together forever. We're going to get through this."

"Jimmy…I love you…keep telling me you love me…I'm scared!"

"Don't be scared," Danny said, squeezing Anna's hand. "You're going to be okay."

Anna's whole body was shaking violently. "Jimmy!" she screamed.

"I love you so much, Mrs. Donahue," Jimmy said softly, kissing the tip of Anna's nose

Anna collapsed. As she fell back against the sheets, her entire body dissolved into a cloud of green and gold dust and blew away in a breeze that didn't exist.

Jimmy opened his hand. Anna's engagement ring and her wedding ring were in the palm of his hand. He clenched his fist and buried his face in the cold sheets.

Danny collapsed back in his chair.

"We were married for a week," Jimmy mumbled.

"She told me," Danny muttered sullenly.

"I'm going to…go tell her parents…" Jimmy said. He pushed himself to his feet and slowly walked out of the room. A few minutes later, Danny head Mrs. Reilly's frenzied, grief-stricken screams coming from the kitchen.

Danny got up, turned himself invisible, and flew out of the house. As he passed the armed guard outside, he saw them loading rifles under the direction of Commander Collins.

"Ready…" Commander Collins ordered, standing at the end of the line, "Aim…Fire!"

The guard fired off a salute.

"Ready…Aim…Fire!"

_BANG_.

"Ready…Aim…Fire!"

_BANG_.

"Ready…Aim…Fire!"

_BANG_.

Danny flew back towards home, the sound of the continued gunshots echoing behind him.

_He had failed her._


	20. Chapter 20

"_Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine…"_

Danny, in his human form, was sitting in a pew in a huge Gothic cathedral.

"…_et lux perpetua luceat eis."_

He was wearing a funeral suit.

"_Te decet hymnus Deus, in Sion…"_

In the pew in front of Danny sat Jimmy Donahue and Anna's parents.

"…_et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem."_

Clockwork was the priest.

"_Exaudi orationem meam…"_

He wore a black robe and priest's collar over his usual clothes.

"…_ad te omnis caro veniet."_

He was floating in the nave, behind the altar.

"_Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine..."_

The altar was draped with a black cloth, and an Irish tricolor.

"…_et lux perpetua luceat eis."_

There wasn't a casket.

"_Kyrie eleison…"_

They didn't need one.

"…_Christe eleison…"_

Danny pulled at the hem of his jacket.

"…_Kyrie eleison."_

Sam and Tucker were sitting in the back.

"_Kyrie eleison…"_

Danny didn't want to be with them right now.

"…_Christe eleison…"_

Danny didn't really want to be with anyone right now.

"…_Kyrie eleison."_

He felt like he wanted to die.

"_Kyrie eleison…"_

How could he have failed her so horribly?

"…_Christe eleison…"_

Half of the Ghost Zone had turned out for Anna's funeral.

"…_Kyrie eleison."_

It wasn't very often that the Ghost Zone lost one of their own.

"_Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine…"_

So everyone had put aside their hatred of Anna and her indiscriminant violence.

"…_et lux perpetua luceat eis."_

Surrounding Danny and for several rows behind him were the inhabitants of the house where Anna had died.

"_In memoria æterna erit iustus…"_

There was an honor guard at the front of the cathedral.

"…_ab auditione mala non timebit."_

Commander-in-Chief Michael Collins was at their head, in full dress.

"_Absolve, Domine…"_

All of the uniforms looked funny, since they were all from different time periods.

"…_animas omnium fidelium defunctorum…"_

Jimmy was trying not to shake.

"…_ab omni vinculo delictorum…"_

"She never did anything wrong," Jimmy whispered under his breath.

"…_et gratia tua illis succurente…"_

He had his fists clenched on his knees.

"…_mereantur evadere iudicium ultionis…"_

Anna's father reached out and put his arm around Jimmy's shoulders.

"…_et lucis æternae beatitudine perfrui."_

Clockwork turned and nodded to the choristers in the alcove, who stood.

"_The Lord is my shepherd…_"

Jimmy pulled away from Anna's father's arm, and slid to the far end of the pew.

"…_therefore can I lack nothing…"_

Danny felt his gut untwist a little at finally being able to understand the words.

"…_He shall lead me in a green pasture…"_

Anna's mother, with a handkerchief held to the corner of her eye, joined in with the sopranos.

"…_and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort…"_

Funerals were for the living, Danny decided.

"…_He shall convert my soul…"_

Danny was sure he had read that somewhere.

"…_and lead me forth in the paths of righteousness…"_

That funerals were for the living.

"…_for His name's sake…"_

Somewhere in the cathedral, the Box Ghost blew his nose.

"…_for His name's sake…"_

No one had been able to figure out why Anna had died.

"…_for His name's sake…"_

Not even Vlad.

"…_Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…"_

Danny had gone to see Vlad two days after Anna had died.

"…_I will fear no evil…"_

He had told Vlad that Anna was gone.

"…_for thou art with me…"_

He explained to Vlad what had happened.

"…_thy rod and thy staff comfort me…"_

He begged Vlad for an explanation.

"…_Thou shalt prepare a table for me…"_

Some reason for why, after years, Anna had collapsed.

"…_against them that trouble me…"_

Vlad had simply shrugged.

"…_Thou hast anointed my head with oil…"_

Danny had decked him.

"…_and my cup shall be full…"_

Jazz had screamed when she had found out.

"…_but thy loving kindness and mercy…"_

Danny had grabbed her and thrown her onto the bed.

"…_shall follow me all the days of my life…_"

Jazz had pressed her face deeply into the mattress to try and muffle her screaming sobs.

"…_and I will dwell in the house of the Lord…"_

Danny had left and slammed the door shut behind him.

"…_in the house of the Lord…"_

He hadn't left his room until the day of the funeral.

"…_forever…"_

He intended to go right back to his room as soon as the service was over.

"…_forever."_

Clockwork motioned to the choristers, and they sat.

"_Dies iræ! Dies illa__, __solvet sæclum in favilla, teste David cum Sibylla!"_

If funerals were for the living, Danny had no idea why he felt so awful.

"_Quantus tremor est futurus,__ q__uando __j__udex est venturus, __c__uncta stricte discussurus!"_

He felt like he was going to throw up.

"_Tuba, mirum spargens sonum per sepulchra regionum,__coget omnes ante thronum."_

In the back of the cathedral, Tucker glanced down at his PDA, which was translating the Latin Mass.

"_Mors stupebit et natura,__cum resurget creatura__Iudicanti responsura."_

He gulped.

"_Liber scriptus proferetur,__in quo totum continetur,__ u__nde mundus __j__udicetur."_

Sam fidgeted and smoothed a wrinkle in her floor-length black dress.

_ "__Judex ergo cum sedebit,__quidquid latet, apparebit. Nil inultum remanebit."_

She didn't really want to be here either.

_ "__Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?__Quem patronum rogaturus,__Cum vix iustus sit securus?"_

But her reasons were somewhat different than Danny's.

_ "Rex tremendæ maiestatis,__qui salvandos salvas gratis,__salva me, fons pietatis.__"_

Anna's mother squeezed her eyes shut, and more tears leaked out.

_ "Recordare, __J__esu pie,__ q__uod sum causa tuæ viæ, ne me perdas illa die."_

Jimmy turned in the pew so he was facing away from Anna's parents, and the nave of the church, and stared at a painting of the Virgin Mary with a blank look on his face.

_ "Quærens me, sedisti lassus. Redemisti Crucem passus. Tantus labor non sit cassus."_

Tucker's head tipped forward.

_"Juste judex ultionis, donum fac remissionis ante diem rationis."_

Danny's head tipped forward.

_ "Ingemisco, tamquam reus. Culpa rubet vultus parce, Deus."_

Sam's head tipped forward.

_ "Qui Mariam absolvisti et latronem exaudisti, mihi quoque spem dedisti."_

Jimmy's head tipped forward

_ "Preces meæ non sunt dignæ. Sed tu bonus fac benigne,__ n__e perenni cremer igne."_

Anna's father began rocking back and forth to the rhythm of Clockwork's words.

_"Inter oves Jocum præsta, __e__t ab hædis me sequestra,__ s__tatuens in parte dextra."_

He twisted his rosary in his hands.

_"Confutatis maledictis, __f__lammis acribus addictis. Voca me cum benedictis."_

Of everyone at the funeral, the lack of Anna's body had hit him and his wife the hardest.

_ "Oro supplex et acclinis. Cor contritum quasi cinis. Gere curam mei finis."_

Anna hadn't been able to see their bodies after they had died.

_"Lacrimosa dies illa qua resurget ex favilla__judicandus homo reus. Huic ergo parce, Deus!"_

He wondered if Anna had dissolved just to spite him.

_ "Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Amen."_

"Amen," the crowd responded, and all the kids jumped.

"_Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriæ…"_

Pointdexter closed his eyes.

"…_libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum…"_

He had loved Miss Reilly.

"…_de pœnis inferni et de profundo lacu."_

And he had always felt so sorry for her.

"_Libera eas de ore leonis…"_

She had been so unhappy.

"…_ne absorbeat eas tartarus…"_

He had always thought that he had been so unhappy for so long.

"…_ne cadant in obscurum…"_

And then he had met Miss Reilly.

"…_sed signifer sanctus Michael…"_

She had been on the prowl in the Ghost Zone.

"…_repræsentet eas in lucem sanctam…"_

She had been spotted, and a warning had been issued for the area, so no one was around.

_"…quam olim Abrahæ promisisti et semini eius."_

No one except Pointdexter.

"_Hostias et preces tibi, Domine…"_

He had just gotten out of school, and hadn't heard the warnings.

"…_laudis offerimus…"_

She had attacked.

"…_tu suscipe pro animabus illis…"_

She had come swooping out of nowhere, picking up Pointdexter by the back of his collar with one clawed hand.

"…_quarum hodie memoriam facimus."_

She had thrown him down, and raised up one clawed hand to tear open Pointdexter's face.

"_Fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam…"_

Pointdexter had screamed "Please!"

"…_Quam olim Abrahæ promisisti et semini eius."_

Anna had frozen, her eyes crossed.

"_Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus…"_

Her hand in the air had started to shake violently.

"…_Dominus Deus Sabaoth…"_

She bared her teeth, and snapped her head back.

"…_pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua."_

The straps from the mind control device dug into her neck.

"_Hosanna in excelsis."_

"No!" Anna had shouted.

"_Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini."_

She had collapsed next to Pointdexter.

"_Hosanna in excelsis."_

Pointdexter had quickly scrabbled away.

"_Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem…"_

Anna had lay still for a moment, then blankly picked herself up and flown away.

"…_Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem…"_

Pointdexter had later learned that Anna had fought off the orders from the Guys in White.

"…_Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem sempiternam."_

It had been the first time she had ever done it, and it would also be the last.

_"Lux æterna luceat eis, Domine…"_

"She didn't deserve him," Sam muttered under her breath.

"…_cum sanctis tuis in æternum…"_

"Sam, that's enough," Tucker whispered, nudging Sam with his elbow.

"…_quia pius es."_

"She didn't, Tucker," Sam huffed.

"_Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine…"_

"Sam," Tucker whispered angrily, "are we going to do this every time Danny cares about anyone but you?"

"…_et lux perpetua luceat eis…"_

"What did she do to deserve him?" Sam snapped back in a hiss.

"…_cum Sanctis tuis in æternum…"_

"What does that matter?" Tucker muttered.

"…_quia pius es."_

"She just turned up," Sam muttered, "and he was all over her."

"_Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem…"_

"Sam," Tucker muttered, grabbing her hand and squeezing it so hard it hurt, and tears started to leak out of Sam's eyes, "if you care about Danny, you'll shut up and mourn the fact that a good girl is dead."

"…_Dona eis requiem sempiternam."_

Jimmy slowly stood up from the pew and made his way to the front of the cathedral to sing.

"_Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling…"_

Jimmy had only seen her once, between his death and Anna's arrival.

"_…from glen to glen, and down the mountainside…"_

He had almost lost her then.

_"…the summer's gone, and all the roses falling…"_

She was beaten, broken, and lost, floating aimlessly and terrified through the Ghost Zone.

_"…it's you, it's you must go, and I must bide…"_

He had been so happy to see her again, and she him.

_"…but come ye back, when summer's in the meadow…"_

He had kissed her as her ghostly bruises and cuts had melted away, and the dried blood disappeared from her hair.

_"…or when the valley's hushed, and white with snow…"_

She had stayed with him for three days.

_"…and I'll be here, in sunshine or in shadow…"_

That was when she had promised to marry him.

_"…oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so…"_

She had wanted to stay.

_"But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying…"_

They both knew she couldn't.

_"…and I am dead, as dead I well may be…"_

He had told her she had to go back.

_"…ye'll come and find the place where I am lying…" _

She had been so scared to go back.

_"…and kneel and say an Ave there for me…"_

She had known that people were going to be looking for her.

_"…and I shall hear, though soft you tread above me…"_

He had held her close, and promised her he would keep her safe.

"_…and all my grave shall warmer, sweeter be…"_

He had made her promise that she would try to be happy.

_"…for you will bend and tell me that you love me…"_

She had promised him that she would try.

_"…and I shall sleep in peace until you come to me…"_

They had sung "Danny Boy," together, as she fell asleep in his arms, and then faded away.

_"…oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy…"_

Mrs. Reilly, in the mourners' pew, had started to cry.

"..._I love you so."_

Clockwork nodded to Jimmy as he returned to his seat.

"_Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna, in die illa tremenda…"_

Anna's father kept pulling on the beads of his rosary.

"…_quando cœli movendi sunt et terra."_

Danny decided that he hated Jimmy.

"_Dum veneris judicare sæculum per ignem."_

What had he done to deserve her?

"_Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque ventura ira…"_

Kept her company?

_"…quando cœli movendi sunt et terra."_

He had never tried to get her out.

"_Dies illa, dies iræ, calamitatis et miseriæ, dies magna et amara valde…"_

What right did he have to come here and mourn for her, when he had never even tried to saved her from the fate the Guys in White had planned for her?

"…_Dum veneris judicare sæculum per ignem."_

He had killed her.

"_Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine…" _

Danny would never forgive him for that.

_ "…et lux perpetua luceat eis."_

The congregation shifted as everyone knelt in the pews.

"_In paradisum deducant te Angeli…"_

Technus shifted his shoulder, still recovering from Anna's shot.

_"…in tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres…"_

The Box Ghost put his hand in his pocket and found the hat that Anna had put a hole through when he had ambushed her on Danny's picnic.

_"…et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem."_

Pointdexter thought about the apple in his coat pocket, which he kept for Anna to use for target practice, and had never taken it out.

"_Chorus Angelorum te suscipiat…"_

The portrait of Jimmy still hung in Danny's house.

"…_et cum Lazaro quondam paupere æternam habeas requiem."_

Jimmy kept Anna's shotgun.

"_Amen._"

"Amen," the congregation repeated obediently.

"Amen," Jimmy said in a choked voice.

"Amen," Sam muttered sullenly.

"Amen," Danny growled.

"Peace be with you," Clockwork told the congregation, spreading his arms in blessing.


	21. Chapter 21

_THUMP._

Danny started awake. He stared around. There was no one there. He put out a hand and touched the wall between his and Anna's rooms. The wall turned transparent. Jimmy was sitting in Anna's desk chair.

Danny growled, and changed into his ghost form. He marched through the wall, arms folded. "Get out of my house," he barked at Jimmy.

Jimmy spun around in Anna's chair. "What's your problem?" he snapped at Danny. "I loved her! She was my wife! I miss her just as much as you do!"

"You never loved her!" Danny shouted. "All those year she was trapped in that lab? You never tried to get her out. You just let her float there! You never tried to save her! If you had tried to get her out, they wouldn't have turned her half ghost, and she wouldn't be dead!"

"You weren't there!" Jimmy protested. "You don't know what it was like! She was twelve, and I was thirteen when I got sucked into the Guys in White and their madness!"

"So?" Danny shouted. "You were so damn brave when the opportunity to get her out just presented itself! But you never took the initiative to try to protect her. You just left her, just stood by and watched while they _tortured _her."

"That's enough," Jimmy growled.

"You know," Danny said, giving emphasis to each word for added spite, "She never mentioned you. She _forgot_ about you. She left you behind. She probably woulda forgotten about you! She seemed quite taken with a young man in her art class…" Now Danny was just talking out of his ass, but he knew it would infuriate Jimmy.

But Danny wasn't expecting Jimmy's response.

Jimmy leapt up, flew straight at Danny, and gave him a right hook that felt like it would about split Danny's head in two. While Danny reeled, seeing stars, Jimmy grabbed the front of Danny's suit and threw him – threw him! – around in an arc and into the opposite wall. He flew over, grabbed Danny, picked him up, and slammed him into the wall. "You think Anna learned all her fighting from the Guys in White?" he roared into Danny's face. "You really think so? No! Some of it comes from being a real scrappy Irish kid, fighting your way around an orphanage, trying to keep your life bearable."

Danny gagged, trying to say something. Jimmy slammed him against the wall again. "No! You listen to me! You knew her for six months! Six months! And you don't even know anything about her past! You know how she grew up? Her parents worked for the IRA! The Irish Republican Army! They made bombs, and stored guns in cupboards! They got out of the game when they had Anna, but they still did favors for their friends in the Army!" He slammed Danny into the wall again. "You know how her parents died? They were shot! By British soldiers! Her parents shut her in a cupboard, told her they'd come back for her when everything was okay! Well guess what? It didn't turn out okay! They raped her mother, just because, and shot and killed both her parents! And she never saw them again!"

He slammed Danny into the wall. "You hearing me? So maybe, think about it, there was a chance she was done with bloodshed!" He let go of Danny, who fell to the floor. Jimmy knelt down next to Danny, and hissed angrily in his ear. "Now, the Guys in White did a horrible thing to her. They turned that sweet, beautiful girl into a monster, and I can't help that, even though it killed me to watch every time they sent her into the Ghost Zone." Green ecto-blood was dripping slowly out of Danny's nose. "Remember that lesson she was drilling into you all the time, that you never listened to? Pick. Your. Fights. She told me that about you. That you never listen!" He kicked Danny in the ribs. "That was a fight that we both had the common sense not to pick. I don't know what they were doing to her. Anything I did mighta killed her."

Danny pushed himself to his hands and knees. "Then, why, when she fell out of her cage, did you pull that device out of her neck?"

"She was in pain," Jimmy said quietly. "And…I couldn't stand it. Not anymore. Not when she was so close I could just…" He let the sentence die out.

"And what if you had killed her?" Danny wheezed.

"Then I would've gone straight after her and killed myself." Danny looked up at Jimmy. Jimmy looked perfectly serious. "As it is…" Jimmy added, "things turned out a little differently."

Danny pushed himself into a sitting position, back against the wall. Jimmy slid down the wall and sat down next to him. "What does any of it matter?" Jimmy muttered sullenly. "Anna's still dead."

"Yes, she is," Danny acknowledged.

"So why are we-"

"I don't know," Danny replied.

The door opened. "Danny," Jazz mumbled, "What are you doing?" She had an ecto-blaster in her hand, angled slightly towards Jimmy.

"Settling old differences," Danny mumbled back, squeezing his nose to make it stop bleeding.

"Danny," Jazz grumbled, "the funeral was three weeks ago."

"Not everyone got over it as quickly as you," Danny grunted.

"Just keep it down, will you?" Jazz grumbled, and left, closing the door behind her.

"Fine," Danny replied.

"Nice to meet you," Jimmy added.

"Jimmy, go home," Danny said. "Why did you come here, anyway?"

"I don't have a very good reason. Or any reason, really." Jimmy stood up and opened the closet. He ran his hands over Anna's clothes.

"Go home," Danny mumbled, "Go home, Jimmy. You're just…making it worse for yourself."

"You still don't get it," Jimmy said, spinning around. "Ghosts…don't…die! I'm going to be mourning her from now 'til Judgment Day. Forever! You can't imagine that."

"No," Danny said slowly, "I can't."

"No, you can't," Jimmy snapped.

More silence.

"You should go home," Danny said.

"I should." Jimmy stood up and brushed off his pants out of habit. "If I get home in the middle of the night, the guard might shoot me."

"That might solve a few problems," Danny said sullenly.

Jimmy stretched, and turned to look at the portrait of himself that Anna had painted. "Do you mind if I keep this?" He pointed at the portrait.

"It's ours," Danny said stubbornly.

"It was hers," Jimmy corrected him. "It's not like she left much behind. I'd like to have it."

Danny opened his mouth to say no, but then he heard something drifting through the half-open window. A few errant pink rays were peeking above the Amity Park skyline.

"_O-oh-oh-oh fro-ah-deh-eh-eh-ens vi-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ir-ga…"_

The fluting, breathy soprano continued to drift through the open window, until Anna's prayer ended, and the ghost of her voice faded away.

Danny and Jimmy sat in silence for a moment. Then Danny vaguely waved his hand. "Take it," he said quietly.

"Thank you," Jimmy said. He floated up and gently unhooked the portrait from the wall. He drifted back down so he stood in front of Danny. He stuck out his hand, and Danny shook it. Jimmy faded back into the Ghost Zone.

Jazz opened the door to Anna's room, and found Danny staring out the window. "I'm proud of you, little brother," she said to him, coming up to him and giving him a hug.

"Then why do I still feel so awful?" Danny moaned.


End file.
